Key contests, candidates: All about UP polls on 24 April

India’s most important political state, which has 80 Lok Sabha seats, will have its third round of polling on 24 April. Nationally, this will be the sixth phase of the the general elections which began on 7 April.

The constituencies going to polls in Uttar Pradesh are Hathras, Mathura, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Hardoi, Farrukhabad, Etawah, Kannauj and Akbarpur, involving an electorate of 1.98 crore. The constituencies are broadly Mulayam Singh territory, with pockets of BJP and BSP strengths. The SP cannot afford to lose any of its strongholds in this phase here.

We take a look at the some of the key constituencies and candidates.

Mainpuri: Samajawadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav is contesting from here. This is an SP stronghold and Netaji won this seat in 1996, 2004 and 2009. Even in the years that Mulayam didn’t contest for the Lok Sabha from here, it has voted for SP. Mulayam is facing BJPs’ Shatrughan Singh Chauhan, and BSP’s Dr Sanghamitra Maurya. Incidentally, the BJP candidate has asked the Election Commission to declare the constituency extra-sensitive and remove senior district administration officials since they were acting as “SP cadres.”

Overall it looks unlikely that Netaji will face any trouble in his re-election, given that BJP’s announcement of Chauhan hasn’t gone down too well with the local cadres. He is seen as a poor candidate, and even the BSP candidate has called Chauhan a ‘dummy candidate.’

Kannauj: Another member of the Samajwadi Party’s Yadav clan is fighting here. Dimple Yadav, the daughter-in-law of Mulayam and chief minister Akhilesh Yadav wife, is seeking to defend her Kannauj seat that she won in 2012.

Dimple faces BJP’s Subrat Pathak and BSP’s Nirmal Tiwari, but she is unlikely to face any trouble while defending her seat. Last time she had won unopposed from here in 2012, a rare feat thanks to Mulayam’s clever politics.

This seat has been with the Yadav family since 1999, first with Mulayam Singh Yadav, and then son Akhilesh who vacated it in 2009 when he became UP CM.

For Dimple, it looks like this is going to be sure shot victory.

Firozabad: The third Yadav who’s constituency will go to polls is Mulayam’s nephew Akshay Yadav, who is the son of Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav. This is another key Yadav-SP stronghold.

Akhilesh had won this seat in 2009 along with Kannauj, beating Congress’ Prof SP Singh Baghel. Akshay Yadav is facing Baghel again who is contesting from a BJP ticket this time. AAP has also put up a Yadav candidate: Rakesh Yadav.

Whether Akshay’s vote bank will suffer remains to be seen. Incidentally, Akshay Yadav had been given the responsibility of nurturing this constituency several years ago and has been meeting people and listening to their problems, but lack of development is still a key issue.

Mathura: This is one of the big fights, where Rashtriya Lok Dal leader Ajit Singh’s son Jayant Chaudhry is defending his seat. The biggest opponent he faces is Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hema Malini, whose campaign has been lack-lustre, but Modi was there at a recent rally.

Hema Malini hasn’t managed to woo the voters and her speeches have been fairly unimpressive. But she’s relying on the Modi wave to help her pull through.

For Jayant the key will be to hold on to his Jat votes to ensure victory. But after the Muzaffarnagar riots, the Jat vote has been veering towards BJP. The BJP has also been quietly telling voters that Hema Malini is married to a Jat (Dharmendra).

Etah: BJP leader Kalyan Singh’s son Rajbir Singh is contesting from Etah. He faces BSP’s Noor Mohammad Khan and SP’s Devendra Singh Yadav in the election.

Etah was Kalyan Singh’s former constituency, but Devendra Singh Yadav had won it in 2004 and 1999. And Kalyan Singh is currently not a very popular man in his constituency. It should be noted that from 1989 to 1998 the BJP had won the constituency consistently.

Will the Modi wave help Kalyan Singh’s son win the seat? That seems probable, but remains to be seen.

Fatehpur Sikri The SP candidate here is Pakshlika Singh, wife of UP minister Mahendra Aridaman Singh. Another former UP minister, Ramveer Upadhyay’s wife Seema Upadhyay, is also contesting for BSP. They are taking on former SP leader Amar Singh, who is the RLD candidate this time. Seema Upadhyay won the 2009 elections for BSP.

Will Amar Singh manage to out-do both BSP and SP and spring a surprise in Fatehpur Sikri?

Agra Agra’s BJP candidate is Dr Ram Shankar Katheria and he’s facing SP’s Maharaj Singh Dhangar and BSP’s Narayan Singh Suman. The AAP candidate is Ravindra Singh, while the Congress candidate is Upendrasingh Jatav.

SP had won this seat in 2004 and 1999. In 2009, the seat was won by BJP and should remain with it.

Hardoi: This seat is seeing three-time SP MP Usha Verma face BSP’s Shiv Prasad Verma who is contesting for the second time. He had contested from Hardoi on a BSP ticket in 2004 but lost to Usha Verma by a margin of nearly 4,000 votes.

As far as overall trends for the polls in UP are concerned, BJP is all set to make gains in the state. The party is likely to get 36 percent of the vote share in the states, according to data from CSDS-Lokniti-CNN-IBN’s pre-poll survey.

According to the poll, the BJP’s closest rival, Samajwadi Party will win 22 percent of the vote, the Bahujan Samaj Party 18 percent and the Congress-Rashtriya Lok Dal combine 16 percent.

While tomorrow’s seat might mean a boost for Samajwadi Party, BJP’s could still be the game-changer in the state. Given that in the last election the BJP got 10 seats only, it needs to do well in the state to help it cross the 272 mark.

If the BJP makes some gains in tomorrow’s phase, it could be a sign of things to come.