Polling for Phase 4 of the Uttar Pradesh elections is underway and people have begun queuing up to cast their votes and decide the fate of the 624 candidates, which are in the fray.
The areas going to the polls in Phase 4 of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections were extremely productive for the BJP in the 2017 Assembly elections.
Follow LIVE UPDATES of Phase 4 of UP Assembly elections HERE
The party and its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) won 52 out of the 60 seats voting in this phase, leaving just four for the Samajwadi Party (SP), two for SP's erstwhile ally Congress, and two for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
Let’s take a look at the key constituencies to watch for in this phase and the big names contesting from the 59 seats.
Lakhimpur Kheri
All eyes are on this constituency from where Union Minister of Home Ajay Mishra is an MP. His son Ashish Mishra is the prime accused in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence case. He is accused of mowing down four farmers with his SUV during the protests on 3 October last year.
At present, all the eight Assembly seats are with the BJP at present. In Lakhimpur city, sitting MLA Yogesh Verma will go up against SP's Utkarsh Verma Madhur. The Congress will be in the fray, hoping its candidate Ravi Shankar Trivedi secures a victory there.
In 2017, Madhur had lost to Verma by a margin of over 37,000 votes.
Lucknow Cantonment
The Opposition is threatening to upset the BJP on this traditional seat that it has held for over three decades. The Assembly segment has elected BJP MLA since 1991, barring 2012 when then Congress leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi defeated Aparna Yadav, who had fought on an SP ticket.
The BJP's Brajesh Pathak has been pitted against Raju Gandhi of the SP. Some of the other candidates in the fray are — Dilpreet Singh Virk (Congress), Anil Pandey (BSP), Ajay Kumar (AAP) and Asheesh Saxena (JD(U)).
Sarojini Nagar
The battle here is between a former ED officer and an SP minister.
The BJP has fielded ex-ED officer Rajeshwar Singh against Abhishek Mishra who had been a minister in the Samajwadi Party government. In 2017, the seat was won by BJP's Swati Singh. The two will also face Congress's Rudra Daman Singh and BSP's Jalees Khan.
Rae Bareli
A Congress stronghold for the most part of the last five decades, this high-profile constituency had been won by Aditi Singh, who recently defected from the INC to the BJP. Her father, Akhilesh Singh, had served as the MLA for Rae Bareli seat since 1993.
The party has now fielded a well-known local doctor Manish Singh Chauhan, who will compete against BJP's Aditi Singh, AAP's Gaurav Singh, and SP’s R P Yadav to keep hold of the Congress bastion.
Lucknow North
SP’s youth leader Pooja Shukla, who had made the headlines in 2017 for waving a black flag at Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, has been fielded as the party's candidate from Lucknow North. She is up against incumbent BJP MLA Neeraj Bora, who had won the seat from the SP in 2017 by a small margin.
Hardoi
Former deputy speaker of Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly Nitin Agarwal, who had crossed over to the BJP from the SP, will fight against SP candidate Anil Verma. Interestingly, Agarwal's family has held the Hardoi seat for nearly four decades. After being held earlier by Naresh Agrawal, the seat now belongs to his son Nitin, who has won the seat twice.
With inputs from agencies
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February 23, 2022 at 09:02AM
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