The eleven Assembly segments in Allahabad are set to witness a battle of prestige, with political heavyweights going all-out to ensure victory for their respective parties. While state BJP president Kesari Nath Tripathi is in the fray from Allahabad (North), Rita Bahuguna Joshi—daughter of late former Congress chief minister Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna—will also be contesting from one of the seats.Ujjawal Raman Singh, son of Samajwadi Party MP Reoti Raman Singh, is also in the contest from Karchana Assembly segment. This seat had been a fiefdom of Reoti Raman Singh, who has thrice been elected from here. The SP supremo has entrusted Reoti Raman with the responsibility of getting party nominees win in at least four Assembly segments, while mafia-turned-MP Atiq Ahmed has also been asked to do his best. It may be mentioned here that Atiq enjoys a considerable hold in at least three seats, including Allahabad (West), from where he had been winning since 1991, and now his brother is the ruling party legislator from there.While other main political parties have nothing to lose, for the ruling SP, it is a matter of prestige. The party had won five of the total 11 seats in the previous elections. “Our party chief has directed the party cadre to work upto their full strength and we are hopeful of bettering our earlier performance (of five seats),” claimed Jokhu Lal Yadav, president of the district unit.Meanwhile, the BJP is banking on its heavyweight, Murli Manohar Joshi, who has always indulged in local politics while remaining the front runner in national politics. In earlier elections, the BJP could win only three seats out of the total 11, but this time, it is hopeful of winning five seats, because it has left two seats for Apna Dal. The Apna Dal chief, Sone Lal Patel, himself is a candidate from Soron Assembly segment, while the other seat his party is contesting from is Meja. The Apna Dal candidates had been runners-up in Soron and third in Meja during the last elections.“Only time will tell how effective our alliance with the BJP will prove to be. Ours is a party that is being undermined by political pundits, but I want to make it clear that the BSP had been a party with only 10 to 12 legislators till it entered into electoral pact with the Samajwadi Party,” said Sone Lal.In the Congress camp, the pressure is on Rita Bahuguna Joshi and her task appears difficult at this stage because of the prevailing groupism in the party’s district unit. The party had won only one seat during the previous elections, but it is banking heavily on the victory of Mayor Jitendra Prasad Chaudhary during the mayoral elections held recently. “My victory has proved that the Congress is on a revival stage and our party will re-assert this point during these Assembly elections, by winning the maximum number of seats,” said the mayor.
