Lok Sabha election 2019: 8 western Uttar Pradesh seats, held by BJP, vote in second phase

The Bharatiya Janata Party swept all these seats — Agra, Aligarh, Amroha, Bulandshahr, Fatehpur Sikri, Hathras, Mathura and Nagina — as it rode on a Narendra Modi wave in the last general elections in 2014.

The BJP will lock horns with the SP-BSP alliance in the second round of seven-phase Parliamentary election on April 18 when eight constituencies in the more prosperous region of western Uttar Pradesh go to polls.

All eight Western UP seats going to polls on April 18, the second phase of Lok Sabha elections 2019, are held by the BJP. (Arun Sharma/HT file photo)

The Bharatiya Janata Party swept all these seats — Agra, Aligarh, Amroha, Bulandshahr, Fatehpur Sikri, Hathras, Mathura and Nagina — as it rode on a Narendra Modi wave in the last general elections in 2014. The party, and ally Apna Dal, had swept 73 of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state in 2014.

The BJP had also won Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar in the same region in 2014. These seats voted in the first phase last week

Click here for full coverage of Lok Sabha elections 2019.

Cane, caste and communal polarisation in western UP decide the political fate of all the parties involved. The ruling party also won in the region on its promise to clear the sugarcane dues owed to farmers, and its vote share was more than the combined votes polled by the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

This year, Mayawati’s BSP is contesting 38 of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh under the seat-sharing arrangement with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party with an eye on defeating the ruling party. Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal has three seats under the pact and the alliance has left two for the Congress.

Read: All you need to know about Uttar Pradesh

The BSP is looking at Dalit-Muslim unity to bag seats in western UP and SP is eyeing Yadav-Muslim consolidation in the Yadav belt.

All these parties have their areas of influence in the region. Agra with its concentration of Dalits is the main support base of the Mayawati-led BSP and the SP’s Yadav and Muslim vote bank is also spread across the western belt.

Congress’ Raj Babbar will contest again from Fatehpur Sikri Lok Sabha seat, which he lost in the 2009 general election, against the BJP’s Rajkumar Chahar.

State animal husbandry minister SP Singh Baghel is trying his luck from the reserved Agra Lok Sabha seat, which the BJP has won five times in the past. Manoj Soni is contesting on a SP-BSP ticket from the city of the Taj Mahal and former income tax commissioner Preeta Harit as a Congress nominee.

The BJP’s Hema Malini, the actor-turned-politician who had defeated RLD heavyweight and party vice-president Jayant Chaudhary, is in the fray from Mathura once again. Considered to be the stronghold of Jat voters, Mathura will also see Kunwar Narendra Singh fight for the RLD while Congress has chosen Mahesh Pathak.

The BJP has fielded Satish Kumar Gautam again against the powerful SP-BSP alliance candidate Ajit Baliyan in the communally-sensitive seat of Aligarh. Congress leader Bijendra Singh is also trying his luck in the Lok Sabha election from this seat.

Yashwant Singh has been fielded again by the BJP in the Nagina Lok Sabha seat against SP-BSP alliance candidate Girish Chandra Jatav and Congress’ Omwati Devi Jatav from the seat reserved for members of Scheduled Castes.

Kanwar Singh Tanwar, one of the richest lawmakers in the country, has been renominated from the Amroha Lok Sabha seat this year and is up against Kunwar Danish Ali of the Bahujan Samaj Party. Ali, the former national general secretary of Janata Dal(Secular), recently joined the BSP. The Congress party has fielded Sachin Choudhary.

Bhola Singh, the sitting member of Parliament, is fighting again for the BJP from the Bulandshahr Lok Sabha seat, another communally-sensitive area, considered to be its bastion. He is up against SP-BSP alliance candidate Yogesh Verma. Bansi Lal Pahadia is the Congress nominee on this seat.

The BJP nominated Rajveer Singh Balmiki (Diler) is fighting from the Hathras seat, which is reserved for the members of Scheduled Castes. Rajveer Singh Balmiki (Diler) will be up against Congress’ Trilokiram Diwakar and Samajwadi Party’s Ramji Lal Suman.

The votes will be counted on May 23 along with other states.