Awadhi belt goes to polls today

As 57 constituencies go to the polls in the fourth phase of the Assembly elections, the fate of some high-profile leaders gets decided tomorrow.

As 57 constituencies go to the polls in the fourth phase of the Assembly elections, the fate of some high-profile leaders gets decided tomorrow. About 1.57 crore voters in the Awadhi belt, that includes Sitapur, Kheri, Barabanki, Gonda and Balrampur, would seal the fate of leaders like Beni Prasad Verma and Arif Mohammad Khan of the Samajwadi Kranti Dal and the BJP’s Yogi Adityanath.

Verma claims to have a sound position on at least a dozen seats in this region, while Yogi says that with the BJP on the right track, more than 30 seats will be in the saffron fold. The BJP is a strong contender here as it finished at the number two position on 29 seats here last time and had won nine.

This time, the BJP tried to improve its position by playing the Yogi Adityanath card. He was provided a chopper for campaigning and he addressed some 34 meetings in this region.

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The SKD has fielded 22 candidates for this phase. For Kurmi leader Verma, eight seats — Masauli, Dariyabad, Fatehpur, Mahesi, Tulsipur, Ayodhya, Rudauli and Fakharpur — are significant as they are Kurmi-dominated.

Meanwhile, it is as much a prestige issue for the SP, which has the maximum number of legislators from this area in the present Assembly — at present, 41 out of the 57 sitting legislators are from this belt.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), however, has little to worry about in this phase as it would, in all likelihood, do better than the previous polls. In the previous elections, the BSP could win only seven seats and three of them then went on to join the SP. The party is pinning its hopes on its candidates in Fatehpur, Rudauli, Haidergarh, Siddhaur, Nawabganj, Bhinga, Utraula, Tulsipur, Mankapur, Mujehna, Katra, Dumariaganj and Naugarh.

Some other prestigious seats like Balrampur, from where Atal Behari Vajpayee fought his first election in 1952 and then contested again in 1962 and 1967. Senior BJP leaders like L K Advani, Kalyan Singh and party president Rajnath Singh have campaigned for their candidates here.

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The Congress does not stand to lose much here. It won only three seats here last time and after defection, Jagadambika Pal is their lone legislator from the region. The party has fielded Jagadambika Pal in Bast Sadar, Binnu Pandey in Balrampur, Devina Kumari in Fakharpur and Ashish Mishra in Sitapur. The fact that Rahul Gandhi held rallies here underlines the importance of the area to the party.