Polarisation before polling day: Is this becoming a pattern with BJP in UP?

12 districts of central Uttar Pradesh will be voting on Sunday 19 February. This includes the Awadh districts of Lucknow, Unnao, Hardoi, Sitapur and Barabanki and the Doab districts of Etawah, Mainpuri, Auraiya, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Kanpur Nagar and Kanpur Dehat.

The Samajwadi Party has the most to lose in this phase as it won 55 out of the 69 seats in the 2012 elections. The party had won all the seats in its traditional strongholds of Etawah, Mainpuri, Kannauj and Auraiya. And this is the region where the party is facing its toughest challenge due to the feud in the Yadav family.

With Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and his uncle and senior party leader Shivpal Singh Yadav at cross-purposes, the SP is facing internal sabotage in several seats in this region. Sources say that Shivpal Yadav and his loyalists can harm the SP in as many as 12-15 seats, mostly in these four districts. Shivpal Yadav is facing sabotage in his own seat Jaswantnagar in Etawah district and this is benefiting BJP candidate Manish Yadav Patre.

In Barabanki district, senior SP leader Beni Prasad Verma is said to be working against the party as his son was denied a ticket by Akhilesh. This is supposedly driving a chunk of the SP's Kurmi votes towards the BSP.

The other major battle will be in Lucknow and Kanpur, which count for 19 seats put together, out of which nearly 12 seats are entirely urban. This is a make-or-break area for the BJP which needs to sweep the urban areas if it is to have a realistic chance of coming to power in UP. Watch out for the Lucknow Cantonment seat where Congress-turned-BJP leader Rita Bahuguna Joshi is facing Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav.

But the popularity of CM Akhilesh Yadav is proving to be a powerful counter-narrative to the BJP in the cities. For Akhilesh, doing well in the urban areas is equally important as it enables him to carve a support base for himself that goes beyond the Yadav family bastions. It is not surprising that Kannauk MP and Akhilesh's wife Dimple Yadav emerged as a star campaigner in this phase.

Unlike the Jat and Muslim dominated first and second phases, OBCs will play a decisive role in the third phase. It will also be a litmus test for the BJP's outreach among non-Yadav OBCs as well as Akhilesh's efforts at wooing this section. Brahmin voters also hold the key in a number of seats, especially the urban constituencies.

In this phase, some confusion has been created in the Muslim community in Lucknow, Hardoi, Sitapur and Barabanki districts, with some Barelvi and Shia clerics reportedly asking voters to support the BSP. This is despite the fact that in a majority of seats, the SP-Congress alliance is the strongest non-BJP alternative.

This phase will decide whether the BSP has managed to secure Muslims outside its Western UP stronghold. Inputs from the ground suggest that the BSP is gaining ground among Muslims and non-Yadav OBCs, besides holding on to its Dalit base. If this indeed is the case, Mayawati could emerge as a silent winner in the elections.