It’s D-Day for SP-Cong. team

2.41 crore voters to decide fate of 826 candidates in third phase of U.P. polls

Poll set: Officials carry voting machines on the eve of the third phase of the U.P. Assembly elections, in Lucknow on Saturday.

The Samajwadi Party has all at stake in the crucial third phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, voting for which will be held on Sunday.

Not only will the party, now led by Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, have to defend its strongholds in and around Etawah, it has a lot to lose in the overall numbers.

Yadav stronghold

In the last elections, the SP secured a thumping mandate in these districts, winning 55 out of 69 seats. While its ally, the Congress had a mere two seats, the SP’s key opponents, the BSP and the BJP also performed dismally, winning six and five seats respectively. This third phase is thus as much about the Yadav family prestige as it is a litmus test for the SP-Congress alliance.

The voting in this phase will span 12 districts, including the major urban centres of Kanpur and Lucknow, and the SP’s core support region of Kannauj, Etawah, Mainpuri and Farukkhabad. The districts of Hardoi, Auraiya, Barabanki, Sitapur Unnao and Kanpur Rural will also vote in this phase. A total of 2.41 crore voters, including 1.10 crore women, will decide the fate of 826 candidates.

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A dyad of dynasts

 

The shadow of the family feud will loom over Mr Akhilesh Yadav with his uncle Shivpal Yadav, politically wounded and isolated, defending his territory in Etawah’s Jaswantnagar. The bad blood betweenthe two was evident with the Chief Minister holdingrallies in Etawah-Mainpuri but not campaigning for his uncle. In fact he went a step further and in a vieled attack urged the people of Etawah to teach Shivpal Yadav a lesson for creating a rift between him and his father Mulayam Singh. Incidentally, while Mr Mulayam Singh has refused to campaign for the SP-Congress alliance, he held a rally in support of his brother.

Internal feud

With the internal feud alive and apparent disattisfaction within the ranks over selection of tickets — sitting MLAs close to Mr Mulayam Singh and Mr. Shivpal Yadav were denied tickets — the SP faces the task of maintaining its hold over Etawah-Mainpuri, which has dense population of Yadavs. Mr Mulayam Singh’s great-grandson, Tez Pratap Singh, is the MP from Mainpuri.

The SP’s prestige will also be at stake in Kannauj, the Lok Sabha seat of Dimple Yadav, wife of Akhilesh Yadav. The SP, which holds all three seats in the district known for its perfume and potatoes, is said to be on a sticky wicket on at least two.

Mr Akhilesh Yadav’s appeal, along with demonetisation, will be tested in the urban centres of Kanpur and Lucknow, where the SP had done reasonably well last time, winning 12 out of the 19 seats. These districts also have substantial pockets of Muslims, Brahmins, Baniyas and Pasis.

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A worthy son finds his feet

 

Many of the districts in this phase also fall along the much-hyped Lucknow-Agra Expressway, a key plank of Akhilesh Yadav’s developmental model.

In the State capital, the SP is confronted with obstacles, but Lucknow also offers some exciting battles. Curiously, the Muslim voters in Lucknow Central seat are in a dilemma as both the SP and Congress have fielded candidates.

Rebel factor

If the incumbent SP MLA and minister Ravidas Mehrotra will once again battle it out on the cycle symbol, Congress State general secretary Maruf Khan is also in the fray after he refused to withdraw his nomination. They will be pitted against former MP Brijesh Pathak, who switched from the BSP to the BJP last year.

In another hotly contested seat, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who rebelled against the Congress, will defend Lucknow Cantonment on a BJP ticket against debutant Aparna Yadav, the younger daughter-in-law of Mulayam Singh.

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State of the U.P. battleground

 

In Sarojini Nagar, another member of the Yadav family, Mulayam Singh’s nephew Anurag Yadav will make his debut. The SP’s sitting MLA and minister Sharda Pratap Shukla was denied a ticket and is contesting as an RLD nominee. With 4.9 lakh voters, Sarojini Nagar is also the largest constituency in this phase.

SP sitting MLAs in Sitapur’s Biswan seat, Rampal Yadav, Mahendra Singh in Sevata and Auraiya’s Pramod Gupta were also denied tickets and are now rebels. In north Lucknow, SP minister and aide of the CM, Abhishek Mishra will battle it out against an influential trader Niraj Vora, who stood second last time as a Congress candidate but will now have a stronger chance on a BJP ticket.

In the 2012 polls, the 12 districts in this phase recorded 59.96% while in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, it was marginally down to 58.43%.