Campaigning for the fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls ended on Tuesday with top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Congress holding roadshows.
In the 2012 elections, the SP won 24 of the 53 seats that are going to the polls across 12 districts on Thursday.
The Bahujan Samaj Party won 15 of them, the Congress six, the BJP five and the Peace Party three.
The districts are Allahabad, Pratapgarh, Jalaun, Kaushambi, Mahoba, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Rae Bareli, Lalitpur, Banda and Fatehpur. As many as 680 candidates are trying their luck.
They include Aradhna Mishra, daughter of the senior Congress leader Pramod Tiwari; Raghuraj Pratap Singh, alias Raja Bhaiyya; Utkarsh Maurya, son of the rebel BSP leader S.P. Maurya, who has joined the BJP; Ujjawal Raman, son of senior SP leader Rewati Raman; and the last Assembly’s Leader of Opposition Gaya Charan Dinkar.
BJP president Amit Shah and SP-Congress alliance leaders Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav held simultaneous roadshows, but on different routes in Allahabad on Tuesday.
Lot of fireworks
The campaigning saw lots of fireworks as Prime Minister Narendra Modi raked up a controversy over his statement on kabristaan (graveyard) and shamshaan (cremation ground)”, with his political rivals accusing him of communalising the elections.
When Mr. Modi slammed the BSP as the Behenji Sampatti Party (in a reference to its chief Mayawati), the BSP leader hit out at him by calling him the “Mr. Negative Dalit Man”.
Addressing a rally in Fatehpur, Mr. Modi said, “If you create a kabristaan in a village, then a shamshaan too should be created. If electricity is given uninterrupted during Ramzan, then it should be given in Deepavali also.”
Rhetoric and reactions
He continued to target the SP-Congress alliance and the BSP for alleged corruption and lack of development. Mr. Modi said the people of U.P. must end the “exile of development”.
He repeatedly accused Akhilesh Yadav of being “least concerned about improving the law and order situation in the State”. While speaking in Fatehpur, Mr. Modi took a dig at the SP-Congress alliance and said, “The two leaders [Akhilesh Yadav and Rahul Gandhi] thought, ‘we are both drowning, why should we not go down together?’”
Mr. Gandhi reacted strongly to PM Modi’s “ kabristaan and shamshaan ” statement and, while addressing an election meeting in Rae Bareli, said, “You must have heard his speech, he [Mr. Modi] has started this (spreading hatred) yesterday. Elections keep on happening but you must understand it quite clearly that if U.P. is set on fire or a house starts burning, everybody’s house will get burnt. Whenever Modi feels jittery, he starts spreading hatred. You can vote for anyone of your choice. But they are trying to put one against the other.”
Mr. Akhilesh Yadav hit the headlines when he advised megastar Amitabh Bachchan, “Please do not advertise for the donkeys of Gujarat” while referring to a Gujarat Tourism advertisement on the wild ass sanctuary of Kutch. BJP leaders expressed fury over the “cheap statement” by Akhilesh Yadav and termed it his “nervousness over his predictable defeat”.
