LUCKNOW: Voting for the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, which will decide the fate of five Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, will be held on Monday.
The seats going to polls in the fifth phase are Mohanlalganj (SC), Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jalaun (SC), Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (SC), Barabanki (SC), Faizabad, Kaisarganj and Gonda.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow) and Minister for Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj), Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur) and Union Minister of State for MSME Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma (Jalaun).
Rahul Gandhi is in the fray from Rae Bareli, which was represented by his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi earlier.
Over 2.68 crore voters are eligible to exercise their polling rights and 144 candidates are in the fray.
The BJP gave tickets to 11 of its sitting Lok Sabha MPs in this phase, while it had fielded new candidates in Barabanki (SC) seat and Kaisarganj.
In the INDIA bloc, the Congress has fielded KL Sharma from Amethi, Tanuj Punia from Barabanki (SC) and Pradeep Jain 'Aditya' from Jhansi, while the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates contest rest of the seats.
Defence minister Singh is eyeing a fourth term from Lucknow. He is pitted against sitting SP MLA Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow Central.
And from the neighbouring constituency of Amethi, Irani is in the poll fray.
In Kaisarganj Lok Sabha seat, the contest is between BJP's Karan Bhushan Singh, son of former MP and ex-president of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and SP's Bhagat Ram.
Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which covers the temple town of Ayodhya, will see a contest between sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh, who is seeking a hat-trick, and Awadhesh Prasad, the SP MLA from Milkipur (SC) assembly constituency in Ayodhya district.
In Hamirpur, the poll contest is between BJP's Kunwar Pushpendra Singh Chandel, eyeing a third term, and SP's Ajendra Singh Lodhi.
In Gonda, BJP's Kirti Vardhan Singh, who is eyeing a fifth term, is facing a contest from SP's Shreya Verma.
The main electoral contest in Banda is between RK Singh Patel, who is seeking a third term, and Krishna Devi Shivshankar Patel of the SP.
Vinod Kumar Sonkar, who is eyeing a hat-trick, will be facing SP's Pushpendra Saroj, son of SP leader Indrajeet Saroj, for Kaushambi (SC) constituency.
And in Jalaun, BJP minister Verma is eyeing a sixth term and is pitted against Narayan Das Ahirwar of the SP.
Meanwhile, voting will also take place for the assembly by-poll in the Lucknow East assembly constituency.
The bypoll was necessitated following the death of BJP's stitting MLA Ashutosh Tandon on November 9, 2023.