Voting for the fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held today. The polling will also take place for the assembly bypoll to Lucknow East assembly constituency. As per the Election Commission data, over 2.68 crore voters are eligible to exercise their voting rights and seal the fate of 144 candidates in the fray.
Prominent candidates in fray
The phase is going to witness the heavyweight candidates including Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor, Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Union Minister of State for MSME Bhanu Pratap Singh. Apart from them, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is contesting from the home turf Rae Bareli. The BJP gave tickets to 11 of its sitting Lok Sabha MPs in this phase, while it had fielded new candidates in Barabanki (SC) seat and Kaisarganj.
Under the seat sharing agreement in I.N.D.I.A bloc, Congress is also contesting Barabanki (SC) and Jhansi with Tanuj Punia and Pradeep Jain 'Aditya as candidates respectively.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates are in the poll fray on the rest of the seats.
Constituencies in fifth phase
The seats going to polls in the fifth phase are Mohanlalganj (SC), Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jalaun (SC), Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (SC), Barabanki (SC), Faizabad, Kaisarganj and Gonda.
In Lucknow, Rajnath Singh is eyeing a third consecutive term from the constituency. Samajwadi Party has pitted sitting MP Ravidas Mehrotra against him. One of the hot seats, Amethi will witness an interesting contest between Smriti Irani and Congress candidate K L Sharma.
In Kaisarganj Lok Sabha seat, the contest is between BJP's Karan Bhushan Singh, son of former MP and ex-president of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and SP's Bhagat Ram.
Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which covers the temple town of Ayodhya, will see a contest between two-time sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh and Awadhesh Prasad, the SP MLA from Milkipur (SC) assembly constituency in Ayodhya district.
Moreover, in Hamirpur, the bipolar contest is between BJP's Kunwar Pushpendra Singh Chandel, eyeing a third term, and SP's Ajendra Singh Lodhi.
In Gonda, BJP's Kirti Vardhan Singh, who is eyeing a fifth term, is facing a contest from SP's Shreya Verma.
Furthermore in Banda, the main electoral contest is between RK Singh Patel, also a two-time sitting MP, and Krishna Devi Shivshankar Patel of the SP.
Vinod Kumar Sonkar, who is also eyeing a hat-trick, will be facing SP's Pushpendra Saroj, son of SP leader Indrajeet Saroj, for Kaushambi (SC) constituency.
Voting will also take place for the assembly bypoll to Lucknow East assembly constituency which fell vacant after the demise of MLA Ashutosh Tandon on November 9, 2023.
(With PTI Inputs)
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