As UP goes for polling for the fifth phase in 61 seats, several prominent candidates are in fray across districts including Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Prayagraj, Barabanki and Bahraich.
The constituency of Ayodhya also votes today, along with 60 other seats spread across 11 districts in the fifth round of the ongoing polls.
Several prominent candidates in the state including Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya, Rajendra Singh, Anil Rajbhar and Aradhana Mishra Mona.
Here are the six key constituencies that goes to polls for the first phase:
Kunda
Six-time MLA Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya is facing a challenge from his erstwhile aide, Gulshan Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, in his pocket borough Kunda. The Samajwadi Party, which had not fielded its candidate on the seat in the past 15 years, has put its nominee in this election to make the contest tough for Raja Bhaiya in his seventh outing in the assembly elections.
The controversial MLA was in the news after he got arrested in 2002 by the then chief minister Mayawati. The Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was also invoked against him. Soon after the formation of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s government in 2003, all POTA charges against him were dropped and his political stature grew overnight.
Ever since then, his relationship with the SP continued and the party did not field a candidate against him in three subsequent elections in 2007, 2012 and 2017. This time, however, the Samajwadi Party has fielded former nagar panchayat chairman Gulshan Yadav and he is leading an aggressively vocal campaign which many believe has not been seen in any of the past contests here. Raja Bhaiya has retained the seat winning for the last six terms –1993, 1996, 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017 — as an Independent candidate surviving all waves and challenges.
Pratapgarh
Union minister Anupriya Patel’s mother and Apna Dal (K) leader Krishna Patel is contesting from the Pratapgarh seat against BJP’s Rajendra Kumar. Apna Dal (K) has entered into an alliance with the Samajwadi Party. In 2019 bypolls, Rajkumar Pal of Apna Dal (S) had won the seat by defeating SP’s Brijesh Verma while BJP’s Sangam Lal Gupta won the Lok Sabha polls that year.
Sirathu
In Sirathu seat of Uttar Pradesh, BJP’s Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya is facing Apna Dal (K) Pallavi Patel, who is Union minister Anupriya Patel’s elder sister. The two sisters have chosen different political trajectories. The faction Apna Dal (Sonelal) led by Anupriya Patel continues to be with the BJP. The seat used to be a strong bastion of the BSP, but Maurya won the seat in 2012. Since then, the BJP has been winning the seat.
Munsab Ali Usmani is contesting from the seat from BSP. The seat is dominated by Dalits, Patels and Pandits.
Allahabad South
In Allahabad South BJP minister Nand Gopal Gupta faces Congress’ Alpana Nishad and SP’s Raees Chandra and BSP’s Devendra Mishra Nagraha and AAP’s Altaf Ahmad. In the last assembly elections, Nand Gopal Gupta had defeated SP’s Parvez Ahmad. In the Lok Sabha election, BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi won from Allahabad Lok Sabha seat by defeating SP’s Rajendra Singh Patel.
Ayodhya
In the Ayodhya seat, BJP has fielded sitting MLA Ved Prakash Gupta against SP’s Tej Narayan Pandey. In the last elections, Gupta defeated Pandey – a prominent Brahmin face by a margin of more than 50,000 votes. In the erstwhile Faizabad, now Ayodhya, the BJP had won all the five assembly segments of Rudauli, Milkipur (SC), Bikapur, Gosaiganj and Ayodhya in 2017.
Shivpur
In the Shivpur assembly seat of Varanasi, BJP minister Anil Rajbhar is pitted against Arvind Rajbhar, son of SBSP chief Om Prakash Rajbhar. Om Prakash had initially planned to contest from Shivpur but now his son is the candidate from here.
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