Congress hopes brightest in last two UP phases

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This is also the reason the Congress has wielded its trump card of Priyanka in this area, to shore up its chances.

There are several reasons why the Congress prospects are brighter in these 27 seats, including anger over several BJP candidates and caste equations here which are different from other regions of the state. West UP has Dalits, mostly Jatavs, while Jats, Gurjars, Muslims form a big number. Central UP has OBCs, including Lodhis, Kurmis, Baghels (in east UP they are Thakurs) who vote for the BJP traditionally. In the eastern part, Brahmins, who used to be Congress supporters, make up good numbers, apart from several OBC sub-castes known to back different parties.

All this has put the Congress in the fight in at least seven-eight seats.

While 14 of the seats vote on May 12, the remaining on May 19. Of the 14 voting in the sixth phase, the Congress had won Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Shrawasti and Domariyaganj in 2009. It had won Maharajganj and Kushinagar among the remaining 13 constituencies, where elections will be held in the last phase.

With 21 seats in UP in 2009, the Congress had a vote share of 18.3%. This had dropped to two seats and 7.5% vote share in 2014.

Kushinagar MLA Ajay Kumar Lallu, who is the Congress Legislative Party leader in the Assembly and has been travelling across the region for campaigning, says, “We are in a direct fight with the BJP in Kushinagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Pratapgarh, Bhadohi and Maharajganj, and in a triangular fight in Sultanpur, Salempur, Deoria, Domariyaganj and Mirzapur.”

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s statement in an interview to Dainik Jagran recently that “the Congress will perform better” than the gathbandhan of the Samajwadi Party-BSP-RLD at some places was seen as hinting at these constituencies. Adityanath had added that the BJP was doing far better than both.

What also seems to be helping the Congress, which ended up behind the SP and BSP in a majority of the 27 seats in 2014, is that the SP votes of Muslims and Yadavs appear to be coming to it because of the weak BSP nominees at several places. Compared to Dalits, Muslims and Yadavs are in larger numbers here.

Additionally, the Congress appears to be drawing the support of other backward and most backward classes like Binds, Lonia (called Nonia in some parts) and Sainthwar etc, who are in good numbers.

In some constituencies, the BJP is hobbled by both anger against sitting MPs who have been fielded again, and infighting, especially in Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria and Salempur. Recently, a video had gone viral of sitting Sant Kabir Nagar MP Sharad Tripathi beating up local party MLA Rakesh Singh Baghel with shoes. Sharad is not contesting this time, with father Ramapati Ram Tripathi given the BJP ticket from Deoria.

The Congress candidate in Sant Kabir Nagar, Bhalchandra Yadav, who had secured over 2.40 lakh votes in 2014 as SP candidate, is now seen as giving a strong fight to BJP candidate Praveen Nishad and the BSP’s Bhism Shanker Tiwari, fighting on the gathbandhan’s behalf.