Last poll notification today

In view of the high Muslim population,possibility of attempts to polarize votes on communal lines is always there. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls,BJP leader Varun Gandhi,who contested the election from Pilibhit,had made a speech for which he was detained under the National Security Act and the government had also ordered his prosecution.

Also in 2009,the Congress had emerged an important political player in the region after its unexpected success in the Lok Sabha. Former Indian cricket team captain Mohammed Azaharuddin,Union minister Jitin Prasad and Jafar Ali Naqvi won from Moradabad,Dhaurahara in Shajahanpur district and Lakhimpur Kheri. But the most surprising was the victory of Congress candidate Praveen Singh Aron who defeated BJP’s national secretary Santosh Gangwar in Bareilly. Until then,Gangwar had not lost an election since 1989.

To consolidate its position,the Congress has tied up with Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Lok Dal,which has a considerable support in the Jat community. In bargain,RLD hopes to gain from Muslim votes of the Congress.

In this phase,all eyes will be on Rampur from where Samajwadi Party’s Azam Khan is contesting the election. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls,Azam Khan,then an SP rebel,had opposed the party candidate and now MP from Rampur Jaya Prada,who later left the party along with Amar Singh. It would be interesting to see what Amar singh and Jaya Prada will do to settle the score this time. Moreover,BJP’s Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also belongs to Rampur.

The popularity graph of BJP MP Varun Gandhi will be on test in Pilibhit district where the party has given most tickets to Varun’s men in Pilibhit and Aonla,his mother Maneka Gandhi’s constituency. Varun has maintained a very low profile during the election campaign this time,confining himself to Pilibhit.

In Badaun district,it would be a test for don-turned MLA D P Yadav who was refused entry into the SP by the party’s state president Akhilesh Yadav. In 2007 Assembly polls,Yadav and his wife Umalesh Yadav had won. This time,the BSP refused to give ticket to Yadav,while his wife was disqualified for sponsoring paid news in the 2007 election.

An important development is the emergence of the Peace Party,which could upset calculations of others by bagging substantial Muslim votes. The party aims to make a Muslim chief minister of the state and its president Dr Mohammad Ayub has travelled extensively in the region in the last few months.