UP set for Phase-6 elections on Wednesday

Vibha Sharma
Varanasi, March 2

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The stage is set for the penultimate round in the long-drawn Uttar Pradesh battle–elections to the 57 seats in Phase-6, which includes Gorakhpur Urban from where Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is contesting his first-ever Assembly elections.

The Samajwadi Party has fielded a Brahmin candidate, Subhawati Shukla, against Adityanath, a Thakur by caste.

Shubhawati is the wife of late BJP leader Upendra Dutt Shukla who unsuccessfully contested the 2018 Gorakhpur Lok Sabha by-election on a BJP ticket after Adityanath resigned from the Lok Sabha to take over as the Chief Minister. She has been accusing the BJP of “ignoring” the family after the death of her husband, who “served BJP for 42 years”.

Making the seat interesting is Chandrashekhar Azad, the Bhim Army chief contesting on the Aazad Samaj Party ticket, Congress’s Chetna Pandey, a former ABVP leader and a Brahmin like Shubhawati Shukla, AAP’s Vijay Kumar Srivastava, a Kayasth, and BSP’s Khwaja Shamsuddin.

Gorakhpur Urban is a seat that the BJP has not lost since 1989. In contrast, it has never won Chillupar, also in the district.

Gorakhpur Urban is a matter of prestige for Adityanth. This particular belt of Purvanchal will also test BSP’s traditional vote bank and claims of social engineering by its leaders.

The BJP is hoping that the BSP does well to provide another angle in the elections that have largely been direct between the BJP and the SP so far.

Another interesting seat in this phase is Fazilnagar in the Kushinagar district from where Swami Prasad Maurya is contesting against BJP’s Surendra Kumar Kushwaha.

Maurya’s resignation from the Yogi Cabinet in January led to the exit of several BJP ministers and MLAs, including Vinay Shakya, Roshan Lal Verma, Brijesh Prajapati and Dara Singh Chauhan.

Speculations are that the SP fielded Maurya from Fazilnagar instead of Padrauna to take care of the anti-incumbency factor and anger among BJP cadres against him.

Maurya on Tuesday accused BJP workers of attacking his convoy during campaign. His daughter Sanghmitra Maurya, a BJP MP, supported her father’s allegation.

Padrauna, incidentally, will also test the efficacy of former Congress leader RPN Singh who switched over to the BJP recently and enjoys considerable goodwill in his area of influence.

Meanwhile, Chillupar in the Gorakhpur district is a constituency the BJP has never won.

Sitting BSP MLA Vinay Shankar Tiwari is contesting on a SP ticket this time against BJP’s Rajesh Tripathi, who too has won the seat on a BSP ticket in the past.

Vinay is the son of influential Bahubali neta of the Gorakhpur region, Hari Shankar Tiwari, who too has won Chillupar multiple times.

Vinay was expelled from the BSP following allegations of indiscipline and inappropriate behaviour with senior office-bearers.

Rajesh Tripathi had won the seat in 2007 and 2012 on a BSP ticket. He too was expelled from the party. 

The 10 districts polling tomorrow include Ambedkar Nagar, Balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, and Ballia.

Other prominent leaders in the fray are state Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu (Tamkuhi Raj) and senior Samajwadi leader Ram Govind Chaudhary (Bansdih).

Ministers include Surya Pratap Shahi (Pathardeva), Satish Chandra Dwivedi (Itwa) and Jai Pratap Singh (Bansi), Shree Ram Chauhan (Khajani) and Jai Prakash Nishad (Rudrapur).