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Lok Sabha election 2019: In the sixth phase, battle for UP shifts to Purvanchal
Purvanchal has some of the most backward districts in the country; the region is poverty stricken even though the land is fertile. Flood is a perennial problem in most of the districts, unemployment and migrations are also major issues and so is the lack of industries.
The battle has now shifted to Purvanchal of Uttar Pradesh in the penultimate round of polling in the Lok Sabha election on May 12 as the BJP faces a strong challenge from the BSP-SP alliance in almost all the 14 seats in the eastern region.
Uttar Pradesh has 80 Lok Sabha seats of which 53 have voted in the first five phases. Fourteen constituencies are scheduled to poll on May 12 and then 13 seats on May 19.
Read: Full coverage of Lok Sabha elections 2019
Purvanchal has some of the most backward districts in the country; the region is poverty stricken even though the land is fertile. Flood is a perennial problem in most of the districts, unemployment and migrations are also major issues and so is the lack of industries.
The BJP has the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on its side and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-Samajwadi Party alliance or gathbandhan has the power of a combined traditional vote back to back it up.
Read: Opposition fails to consolidate anti-BJP vote in key seats
Of the 14 seats voting in the sixth phase, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won all barring Azamgarh in 2014. The SP had bagged Azamgarh and it is the only seat where the outcome seems to be predictable in favour of its leader Akhilesh Yadav.
It will be a fierce triangular contest among the BJP, BSP-SP and Congress on two seats of Sultanpur and Pratapgarh. And a straight fight between the BJP and the alliance on 11.
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The combined vote share of SP and BSP on almost all these seats in 2014 was higher than the BJP’s.
“Both — the six and the seventh phase spread across the whole of eastern UP — are equally important. The trend of the sixth phase will follow in the seventh phase which has 13 constituencies, including Varanasi, the centre of eastern UP and politics of the country at present,” BHU professor Kaushal Kishore Mishra said.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in the fray in Varanasi. His two Union ministers, Manoj Sinha and Anupriya Patel, are the candidates at Ghazipur and Mirzapur. The party, which does well in the region, will emerge victoriously and a play key role in politics at the Centre,” Mishra, who teaches political science at Banaras Hindu University, added.
This phase will decide the fate of political bigwigs — SP’s Akhilesh Yadav in Azamgarh, Union minister and BJP leader Maneka Gandhi in Sultanpur, BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi in Allahabad and former chief minister Jagdambika Pal in Domariyaganj.
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Azamgarh will be among the most-watched constituency where the gathbandhan’s driving force Akhilesh Yadav will be contesting his first elections as the national president of the party. His father Mulayam Singh Yadav is the sitting member of Parliament from the seat. The Congress has not fielded a candidate against Akhilesh and the BJP nominated a political novice and Bhojpuri singer-actor Dineshlal Yadav ‘Nirahua’. The ruling party has never won this seat.
All eyes will also be on Phulpur, the seat where the BJP’s loss paved the way for the alliance between parties led by one-time arch rivals Akhilesh and Mayawati. The victory of the SP candidate, backed by the BSP, in Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls in March 2018 proved to be a turning point in Uttar Pradesh politics.
The SP’s Pandhari Yadav, BJP leader Keshri Patel and Pankaj Niranjan of the Congress are in the fray in Phulpur this year.
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The state’s tourism minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who did not win the 2009 and 2014 Lok Sabha polls as a Congress candidate in Lucknow, has since then migrated to the BJP. She won the Lucknow Cantt seat on a BJP ticket in the assembly election in 2017.
Her father, the late UP chief minister Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, had represented Allahabad, where she is contesting now. Her third successive attempt at Lok Sabha polls is not easy foray either as the BSP-SP alliance candidate Rajendra Singh Patel is giving her a tough fight on the high-profile seat.
The BJP shifted its sitting MP from Pilibhit Maneka Gandhi to Sultanpur where she is locked in a tough triangular contest with Chandra Bhadra Singh of the BSP and the former Sultanpur lawmaker and Congress’ Sanjay Singh.
In Ambedkarnagar, it has turned a bipolar contest by default after the nomination paper of Congress candidate’s was rejected.
Jagdambika Pal, who had won Domariyaganj in 2009 as a Congress candidate and in 2014 as the BJP candidate, is fighting on a BJP ticket looking for the third straight win on the seat.
