LUCKNOW: The stage for the third phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on Sunday is set in a region where the caste mix becomes trickier with each district. While voters' issues range from law and order to stray cattle in this stretch, in many a seat the battle will be for political legacy.
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 Adityanath government will try their fate in their respective seats — Maharajpur and Kalyanpur — in Kanpur Nagar.
In 2017, the BJP had won 49 of 59 seats going to 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.
The 2022 battle is being seen more as a straight fight between the BJP and the SP. It will be interesting to see if the ruling party’s “caste arithmetic” still works or has it been breached by Akhilesh Yadav’s “new Samajwadi Party” which has a bouquet of alliances with smaller caste based outfits. Again, a lot will depend on the voting pattern of the non-Yadav OBCs often referred to as the MBCs (most backward classes).
Big Fights
The third phase of the election, which covers the so-called Yadav belt, will see a direct battle between the ruling BJP and opposition SP
Karhal: Part of 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’s 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 fray from Jaswantnagar, another bastion of the Samajwadi Party. Shivpal has been representing this seat in the Assembly for four times since 2002. This will be his fifth time if he wins the seat. BJP has fielded Vivek Shakya to take on Shivpal. The seat was won by SP in 2017
Etawah: Another bastion of SP, it was breached by the BJP through Sarita Bhadauria in 2017. The party has reposed confidence in Bhadauria 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 the district it could win in 2017 amid the Modi wave. Other two had gone into BJP kitty. Arun is facing sitting SP MLA Anil Dohre who had won the seat with a thin margin of 2,454 votes in the previous election
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 facing Fateh Bahadur Singh of SP, Surendra Apl Singh of BSP and Kanishka Pandey of Congress. Mahana has won continuously from this constituency for the last 30 years
Govindnagar: BJP veteran Satyadev Pachauri vacated the seat after becoming Kanpur MP in 2019. In the bypoll in 2019, BJP’s Surendra Maithani retained it. Maithani is back again. His main rival is 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
Jhansi Sadar: Sitting BJP MLA Ravi Sharma, who had won the seat in 2017, is back again. 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 the SP ticket. BSP has fielded Kailash Sahu and Congress Rahul Richhariya