Lucknow. In the Uttar Pradesh Vidhan Sabha elections, voting will be held on Sunday for the third phase in 59 constituencies spread over 16 districts of the state. State Chief Electoral Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said that the voting will start from 7 am on Sunday and will continue till 6 pm and the Election Commission has directed the concerned administrative officers to make proper arrangements to ensure that Voters should not face any problem while exercising their franchise.
In the third phase, more than two crore 15 lakh voters will exercise their franchise. These include more than one crore 16 lakh male voters and more than 99 lakh female voters, while more than one thousand transgender (third gender) voters are included. In the third phase, 59 assembly constituencies in 16 districts of the state, including Karhal assembly seat in Mainpuri district, where Union Minister Professor SP Singh Baghel from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and chief opposition Samajwadi Party President and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav are in a face-off. .
A total of 627 candidates tried their luck in the third phase in Mainpuri district as well as in the assembly constituencies of Hathras, Firozabad, Etah, Kasganj, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Etawah, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur Nagar, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Hamirpur and Mahoba districts. are. The campaigning in these districts in the third phase ended on Friday evening. Akhilesh is trying his luck in the assembly elections for the first time from Karhal area of Mainpuri district. In the year 2017, even in the BJP wave, SP’s Sobran Singh Yadav had retained his victory in this seat.
The contest has become interesting with Union Minister Professor SP Singh Baghel coming out as the BJP candidate against Akhilesh. Baghel has already claimed that no constituency can be called a ‘fort’ or a ‘garh’. Union Home Minister Amit Shah campaigning for Baghel and SP founder Mulayam Singh Yadav campaigning for his son Akhilesh Yadav among the voters of Karhal. Making his first appearance in these elections, Mulayam sought votes for his son in Karhal, while Amit Shah told voters that only one seat (Karhal) can work for 300 seats.
Amit Shah had said, “Get Kamal to win in Karhal and SP will be wiped out from the state.” Meanwhile, the BJP has already approached the Election Commission seeking deployment of central paramilitary forces at all booths in Karhal. Not only this, it has also demanded installation of CCTV cameras after the recent incident of attack on Baghel’s convoy. Akhilesh’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav is contesting from his traditional Jaswantnagar seat. Congress General Secretary and in-charge of UP affairs Priyanka Gandhi did door-to-door campaigning and road shows in Kanpur, Hamirpur and Jalaun. BSP chief and former Chief Minister Mayawati addressed public meetings in Auraiya and Jalaun.
State government minister Satish Mahana (Maharajpur-Kanpur) and Excise Minister Ramnaresh Agnihotri (Bhogaon-Mainpuri) Ramveer Upadhyay (Hathras-Sadabad) are in the fray from BJP out of a total of 627 candidates for the third phase, while former Union minister Salman Khurshid’s wife is in the fray. Lewis Khurshid is the Congress candidate from Farrukhabad Sadar. Aseem Arun, an Additional Director General of Police level officer who left the Indian Police Service (IPS) and joined politics, is also trying his political luck on a BJP ticket from the Sadar assembly constituency of Kannauj in the same phase.
In 2017, the BJP had won 49 out of 59 seats in the third phase, while the SP had to be content with just nine. The Congress got one seat, while the Bahujan Samaj Party could not get a single seat. Voting has been completed in 58 seats in the first phase on February 10 and in the second phase on February 14 for 55 seats. Voting for the seventh phase of the seven-phased assembly elections in the state will be held on March 7. The results will come on March 10.