Campaigning for the fourth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha elections came to a close on Monday. Polling across 14 parliamentary constituencies in Central U.P. and Bundelkhand will be held on April 30.
The forthcoming electoral battle in Lucknow and Rae Bareli, coming amid a hard-fought election campaign, will decide the fates of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress party chiefs.
While BJP president Rajnath Singh led his own campaign, camping in the city and holding road shows, his Congress rival Sonia Gandhi was represented by her daughter Priyanka Vadra. Other key contenders for the city are the Congress’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi, the Samajwadi Party’s Abhishek Mishra, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Nakul Dubey and the Aam Aadmi Party’s Jaaved Jaffrey.
In Kanpur, Union Minister and two-time MP Sri Prakash Jaiswal is pitted against former BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi. Dr. Joshi was shifted from Varanasi to Kanpur in order to facilitate the candidature of the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi from Varanasi.
Another interesting contest is likely in Jhansi where the BJP’s firebrand leader, Uma Bharti is pitted against Union Minister and sitting MP, Pradeep Jain “Aditya” of the Congress and Chandrapal Yadav of Samajwadi Party. Dhaurahra which goes to the polls in this phase will see Union Minister Jitin Prasada in the fray for the seat he won in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, while the chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes, P.L. Punia, is seeking re-election from Barabanki.
Polling on April 30 will be held in Dhaurahra, Sitapur, Misrikh (reserved), Unnao, Mohanlalganj (reserved), Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Kanpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur and Barabanki (reserved).
Meanwhile, 2,152 buses have been requisitioned by the State government for ferrying security personnel for poll duty on Wednesday.
This article has been corrected for an editing error
