Polling for 14 LS seats begins in UP; Maneka Gandhi, Nirahua in fray
Lucknow, May 25 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) Voting for 14 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh started at 7 a.m. on Saturday in the sixth and penultimate round of elections. The Lok Sabha seats in the state on which polling is underway are Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Phulpur, Allahabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Shrawasti, Domariyaganj, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Lalganj, Azamgarh, Jaunpur, Machhlishahr and Bhadohi. According to the Election Commission, 2.70 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. Sant Kabir Nagar has the highest number of 20.71 lakh voters, while the Allahabad (Prayagraj) constituency has the lowest 18.25 lakh registered voters. Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said that in all, 14 constituencies, including two reserved seats of Lalganj and Machhlishahr, there are 1.43 crore male voters, 1.27 crore female voters and 1,256 third gender voters. A total of 162 candidates, including 16 women, are contesting in this phase with a maximum of 26 contestants from Pratapgarh and a minimum of six from the Domariyaganj seat. The key candidates in this phase include Maneka Gandhi in Sultanpur, who is seeking her ninth term in the Lok Sabha. She is contesting against Samajwadi Party’s Ram Bhual Nishad and Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) Udraj Verma. In Allahabad, Neeraj Tripathi, son of former West Bengal governor Kesari Nath Tripathi, is the BJP candidate competing against Ujjawal Raman Singh of the Congress. Singh is the son of Reoti Raman Singh, who represented the seat from 2004 to 2014. In Azamgarh, incumbent MP Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua is seeking to retain his seat for the BJP, facing off against Samajwadi Party’s Dharmendra Yadav, who lost to Nirahua in the 2022 by-poll. The seat was previously held by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in the 2019 elections. Jaunpur will see former Maharashtra minister Kripa Shankar Singh of the BJP competing with Samajwadi Party candidate Babu Singh Khushwaha and the incumbent MP Shyam Singh Yadav of the BSP. In Bhadohi, Lalitesh Pati Tripathi of the Trinamool Congress is in the race, while in Ambedkar Nagar, BJP’s Ritesh Pandey is up against former minister Lalji Verma of the Samajwadi Party. In Sant Kabir Nagar, BJP incumbent Praveen Nishad is contesting against Samajwadi Party’s Pappu Nishad. Meanwhile, police have made elaborate security arrangements for the sixth phase of polling taking place in the state. DGP Prashant Kumar said, “To ensure successful conduct of voting, 8,840 inspectors/officers, 68,191 head constables/constables, 48,091 home guards, 49 companies of PAC, and 229 companies of Central Armed Police Force (BSF/ITBP/CRPF/CISF/ SSB/RPF) have been deployed. Additionally, 18,862 village guards and 443 PRD personnel have been mobilized as force multipliers.” —
