Phase III notification today

The region,which borders Chhattisgarh,Jharkhand and Bihar,has been a stronghold of the BSP and the SP for years with a substantial presence of SC and OBC population. In 2007,before the delimitation,it had 52 constituencies; the BSP had won 33 seats,the SP 11,the BJP 5 and the Congress 3.

The region also has the Gandhi family pocket borough of Amethi and Rae Bareli. So the phase will be important for Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi as three assembly seats — Amethi,Gauriganj and Jagdishpur — in his Lok Sabha constituency of Amethi would up for grabs. Since he has been busy campaigning across the state,his sister Priyanka Vadra Gandhi has taken the charge of the party’s campaign in the constituencies.

In Sultanpur,which will go to the polls in this phase,BSP has fielded Tourism Minister Vinod Singh from Lambhua seat. He is son of late Kedar Nath Singh,who was Congress general secretary during the time of Rajiv Gandhi.

However,for the first time in several decades,veteran Congress leader Ram Sewak will not be in fray from Sultanpur. Nine-time MLA,Ram Sewak is the oldest Congress leader in Sultanpur district. He had first entered the state Assembly way back in 1967 as a Jana Sangh nominee. This time,he requested the party to select one of his relatives in his place citing ill health.

For the ruling BSP,Allahabad district is particularly important where it had won eight of the total 11 seats in the last Assembly polls. Minister of State for Homeopathy Nand Gopal Nadi had defeated BJP stalwart Kesharinath Tripathi and Congress nominee Rita Bahuguna Joshi,who is now state Congress chief,in Allahabad (South). His victory was attributed to the success of BSP’s Brahmin-Dalit social engineering theory because the constituency has a good population of Brahmins.

Dons of eastern UP,Munna Bajrangi and Brajesh Singh,will also be in the fray this time. While Brajesh is a nominee of Manav Pragatesheel Party for Chandauli’s Saiyad Raja seat,Apna Dal has fielded Bajrangi from Jaunpur’s Madiyanhu seat. Brajesh will be fighting against a former Provincial Police Service officer Shailendra Singh,who is the Congress nominee.

Varanasi,which has eight Assembly seats,will be a test of popularity of local BJP MP and former national president Murli Manohar Joshi. Important candidates in this phase are BJP legislature party leader Om Prakash Singh from Mirzapur’s Chunar constituency,Congress MLA and former Allahabad University Student Union’s president Anugraha Narayan Singh from Allahabad (North),former secondary education minister Rangnath Mishra,who was indicted by the Lokayukta,from Mirzapur,silk minister Jagdish Narayan Rai from Jaunpur district,and social welfare minister Indrajeet Saroj from Kaushambi.