Uttar Pradesh polls: Casteism at play in Purvanchal

Lucknow: Campaigning ended on Saturday for the fifth phase of Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in which 52 seats across 11 districts are going to polls  on Monday.

This phase of polls opens the door to Purvanchal where casteism plays a greater role than communalism, even though backwardness continues to dominate the region and most families have at least one member migrating to the cities for work. In 2012, the Samajwadi Party gained strength from this phase where it won 37 out of 52 seats.  

The party won all the five seats in Faizabad, including Ayodhya. In most of the seats now, SP is facing a strong anti-incumbency wave and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav is trying to fight back with back-to-back meetings. The party had won 16 seats in districts such as Shravasti, Balrampur, Sultanpur and Ambedkar Nagar, and is trying hard to retain them.

The SP also has nine ministers seeking re-election in this phase; they include Avadesh Prasad, Vinod Singh Pandit, Ram Karan Arya, Yasser Shah, Tej Narain Pandey Ram Murti Varma, S.P. Yadav, Shankhlal Manjhi and Gayatri Prajapati.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, in 2012, had won only five seats in this phase, but the party is poised to increase its tally this time. The party’s ticket distribution in the seats going to polls  Monday has not raised any major controversy, and it looks comfortably placed.

The Bahujan Samaj Party is another party that is confident of increasing its number in this phase. The party, which had won only three seats in 2012 in this phase, is looking to increase seats, especially in districts such as Ambedkar Nagar, Gonda, Balrampur and Sant Kabir Nagar.

The Congress had won five seats in this phase in 2012, but its MLAs in Basti, Bahraich and Amethi have already defected to other parties.

The party faces the challenge of increasing its tally in Amethi, which is the parliamentary constituency of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. The Peace Party, which won two seats in this phase, lost considerable ground in the past five years.

Of the four MLAs, three have gone against party president Mohamed Ayub, against who a rape case has been filed. In all, 608 candidates are in the fray in this phase with a maximum of 24 candidates in Amethi and a minimum of six each in Kapilvastu and Etwa seats of Siddhartha Nagar district. Prominent contestants in this phase include controversial minister Gayatri Prajapati (SP), who will be facing Ameeta Sinh (Congress).