LUCKNOW: The stage is set for the third phase of voting in a region where the caste mix becomes trickier with each district. While for voters issues range from law and order to stray cattle in this stretch, in many a seat the battle will be for political legacy. If on one side, Samajwadi Party chief and Yadav clan scion Akhilesh Yadav will test the poll waters in his debut battle from his stronghold of Karhal, on the other, two ministers – Satish Mahana and Neelima Katiyar -- of Yogi government will try their fate in their respective seats – Maharajpur and Kalyanpur -- in Kanpur Nagar on Sunday.
While the campaign for the third phase of the 7-phased state assembly election ended on Friday evening, the polling will start at 7 am on Sunday in accordance with ECI guidelines to ensure Covid-free polls. The voting will end at 6 pm.
As many as 627 candidates of which 97 women are in the fray for 59 seats across 16 districts going to polls in the third phase which has around 2.16 crore electorate. In 2017, the BJP had won 49 of 59 seats going to the polls in the third phase.
Samajwadi Party had not fared well in the Yadav belt and could win just 8 seats under the sweeping Modi wave in 2017. While the BSP and Congress had won one seat each. Of the 59 seats going to the polls on Sunday, 11 are reserved. In the 2012 assembly elections, SP had won 25 of the 29 seats of the Yadav belt but the saffron juggernaut made prominent forays into it by winning 23 seats leaving just six for the SP in 2017.
The districts going to the polls in the third phase comprise Mainpuri, Etawah, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Auraiyya, Firozabad, Etah, Hathras, Kasganj, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Jalaun, Mahoba, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur Nagar and Hamirpur. At least eight of the 16 districts going to polls on Sunday have a respectable chunk of Yadav population so they are collectively known as the Yadav belt which comprises 29 of the 59 seats going to polls in the third phase.
Big Fights in Phase -III:
Karhal: In Mainpuri district, this seat has become high-profile as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is making his assembly polls debut from here. Even the BJP is not ready to give a cakewalk to the SP chief and has made the battle extremely interesting by fielding Prof SPS Baghel, Union Minister and BJP MP from Agra, against Akhilesh. Karhal, just 4 km from Akhilesh native village Safai, is considered to be the pocket borough of SP as party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and many of his clan studied here and later Mulayam took up a teacher’s
job here. The seat was won by SP in 2017.
Jaswantnagar: Akhilesh Yadav’s uncle Shivpal Yadav is again in the field from Jaswantnagar, another bastion of the Samajwadi Party. Shivpal has been representing this seat in the state assembly four times since 2002. This will be his fifth time if he wins the seat as SP ally. BJP has fielded Vivek Shakya to take on Shivpal. The seat was won by SP in 2017.
Etawah: Another bastion of the Samajwadi Party, it was breached by the BJP through Sarita Bhadauria in 2017. The party has reposed confidence in Bhadauria, an old party worker, again. SP's Sarvesh Shakya has been given the responsibility of winning back the Fort Etawah. BSP has fielded Kuldeep Gupta and Congress Mohammad Rashid.
Kannauj (SC): It is witnessing a direct BJP-SP contest. BJP has placed the bet on former top cop Asim Arun who has been entrusted with winning the SP stronghold for the party. In 2017, SP had won the seat, the only one of the three constituencies in 2017 under Modi wave. Other two --Tirwa and Chhibramau – had gone into BJP kitty. Arun is facing the sitting SP MLA Anil Dohre who had won the seat with a thin margin of 2454 votes in previous elections.
Bidhuna: The direct contest between SP and BJP is more of a family battle here. As the BJP had won the seat in 2017, its sitting MLA Vinay Shakya switched over to the SP along with Swami Prasad Maurya. BJP has fielded Shakya’s daughter Rhea while the SP has placed the bet on the daughter–in–law – Rekha Verma – of former Assembly speaker Dhani Ram Verma.
Maharajpur: UP industrial development minister and seven-time BJP MLA Satish Mahana is trying poll waters from this seat in Kanpur Nagar facing Fateh Bahadur Singh of SP, Surendra Apl Singh of BSP and Kanishka Pandey of Congress.
Govindnagar: BJP veteran Satyadev Pachauri had vacated the seat after becoming Kanpur MP in 2019. In the bypoll in 2019, BJP’s district president Surendra Maithani, retained it. Maithani, a native of Uttarakhand but settled in Kanpur, is back again. His main rival is the same, 27-year-old Karishma Thakur, a former NSUI hand and ex-general secretary of DU Students Union. SP has also fielded a young candidate, 28-year-old Vikas Yadav alias Smart Yadav. BSP candidate Ashok Kumar Kalia makes the field competitive.
Jhansi Sadar: Sitting BJP MLA Ravi Sharma, who had won the seat in 2017 as well, is back again in the fray. His rival is veteran Sitaram Kushwaha, who was a runner-up on a BSP ticket against Sharma in both 2012 and 2017. But this time, he is contesting on an SP ticket. BSP has fielded Kailash Sahu and Congress Rahul Richhariya, the general secretary of UP Congress.