Riding high on the Narendra Modi wave, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had in 2014 won 12 out of 13 seats that went for polls in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 29, a feat that will not be easy to repeat.
The saffron party this time faces the challenge of the alliance formed by erstwhile arch rivals Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), along with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
Satyadev Pachauri the BJP contestant is presently in the lead.
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The seats which went for polls -- Kanpur, Akbarpur, Kannauj, Unnao, Farrukhabad, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Hardoi, Misrikh, Jalaun, Etawah, Kheri and Shahjahanpur -- mainly cover the Kanpur-Bundelkhand and parts of Rohilkhand region. Barring Jalaun seat , the combined vote share of the SP-BSP alliance in 2014 surpasses that of the BJP.
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Dimple Yadav, wife of Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, is seeking a third term from Kannauj while former union ministers and Congress leaders Salman Khursheed and Shri Prakash Jaiswal are contesting from Farrukhabad and Kanpur.
The Yadav family has been holding Kannauj seat since 1998 when Mulayam Singh Yadav won it for the first time and vacated it for his son Akhilesh, who won it thrice creating a strong bond with the constituency, which he has carefully nurtured.
{{/usCountry}}The Yadav family has been holding Kannauj seat since 1998 when Mulayam Singh Yadav won it for the first time and vacated it for his son Akhilesh, who won it thrice creating a strong bond with the constituency, which he has carefully nurtured.
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Akhilesh’s goodwill ensured his wife’s win in 2014 when the BJP candidate Subrat Pathak put up a stiff challenge. Not taking any chances this time, the SP is making concerted efforts to maximise the margin, especially after BJP president Amit Shah recently said that the Kannauj seat was a priority for him.
In Farrukhabad, former union minister Salman Khursheed is trying to make a comeback after suffering a shock defeat in 2014. He had secured just 95,000 votes and stood fourth. The seat was won by BJP’s Mukesh Rajput.
After denying ticket to veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi, the BJP faced tough challenge in Kanpur. State minister Satyadeo Pachauri, who is contesting in place of Joshi, is facing resistance from within the party. This has come as a breather for Congress’s Shri Prakash Jaiswal, who lost in 2014 despite his vote share growing.
BJP’s Sakshi Maharaj and former chairman of SC/ST Commission Ram Shankar Katheria are also in the fray from Unnao and Etawah, respectively.
Maharaj is seeking re-election from the Backward and Dalit-dominated Unnao constituency against Congress candidate Annu Tandon.
The election outcome in this region will largely depend on caste alignments, particularly of OBCs and Dalits. The BJP has not given tickets to its sitting MPs in three (Etawah, Hardoi and Misrikh) out of four reserved seats. In all, the BJP has changed six candidates on 13 seats going to polls in this phase which has led to discontent among the cadre.
The saffron party has fielded former pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Ram Shankar Katheria in Etawah, which has been its laboratory of social engineering for the last nine years. The move comes as a counter to the alliance that polled 48% votes in 2014 against 46% of the BJP. In Misrikh and Hardoi, the combined vote share of the alliance is more than 51%.
Shahjahanpur and Kheri are the two constituencies of Rohilkhand region that will go to polls in the fourth round. Polling was held in seven constituencies of the region including Bareilly, Moradabad and Badaun in the third phase on April 23.
Shahjahanpur, located about 170 kilometre north of Lucknow, is a BJP bastion. With 80% Hindu population, highest in Rohilkhand region, the constituency gave a clear mandate to BJP’s Krishna Raj in 2014. Raj defeated BSP’s Umed Singh Kashyap by a margin of 2 lakh votes.
This time, BJP has fielded local politician Arun Sagar against Umar Chandra Jauhar who is contesting as SP-BSP alliance candidate.
The Congress has named Braham Swarup Sagar from the seat. Falling in the wheat growing belt of western UP, farmers of Shahjahanpur will play a crucial role in the election. Besides farm issues, Shahjahanpur also lacks government infrastructure and employment.
In Kheri, the SP-BSP alliance has named Poorvi Verma who will face sitting BJP MP Ajay Kumar Mishra and Zafar Ali Naqvi of the Congress.
Besides farm distress, people in Kheri have a long standing demand for rail connectivity with Lucknow and a bus depot with buses to major cities.