Political fever in Uttar Pradesh goes high as the fate of 676 candidates, including Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, will be decided in the sixth phase of the state Assembly polls will be held on Thursday in 57 Assembly seats across 10 districts.
Of the total 57, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dominated the seats in this belt in the last assembly elections in 2017. BJP won 46 seats while Apna Dal won one seat. Samajwadi Party (SP) won only two seats, while Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won 5 seats. Congress and Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) won 1 seat respectively. The ten districts going to the polls in the sixth phase are Gorakhpur, Ambedkarnagar, Ballia, Balrampur, Basti, Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Sant Kabir Nagar and Siddharthnagar.
A total of 2,14,62,816 voters including 1,14,63,113 males, 99,98,383 females and 1,320 third genders are expected to exercise their right to franchise to seal the fate of 676 candidates. The maximum numbers of candidates are in Tulsipur, Gorakhpur Rural
and Padrauna and the least are in Salempur.
The prominent faces in the fray in this phase are Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi (Pathardeva), Education Minister Satish Chandra Dwivedi (Itwa), Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh (Bansi), state Ministers Shree Ram Chauhan (Khajani) and Jai Prakash Nishad (Rudrapur).
The Samajwadi Party (SP) has fielded the wife of late Upendra Dutt Shukla, a former BJP leader, against Adityanath. State Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu is contesting from Tamkuhi Raj constituency in Kushinagar district, Swami Prasad Maurya, who had left the BJP to join the SP weeks ahead of the polls is a candidate from Fazilnagar in Kushinagar district, and Leader of Opposition in the state assembly and senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Govind Chaudhar is in the fray from Bansdih from Ballia district.
According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 23 per cent, or 151 out of 670, candidates contesting in the sixth phase face serious criminal cases such as rape and murder.
Among the major parties, 40 or 83% out of 48 candidates analysed from Samajwadi Party, 23 or 44% out of 52 candidates analysed from BJP, 22 or 39% out of 56 candidates analysed from Congress, 22 or 39% out of 57 candidates analysed from BSP and 7 or 14% out of 51 candidates analysed from AAP have declared criminal cases against themselves in their affidavits.
Also, 37 or 65% out of 57 constituencies are Red alert constituencies (Red alert constituencies are those where 3 or more contesting candidates have declared criminal cases against themselves.) According to the report, two candidates face rape charges, eight face murder charges and 23 face attempt to murder charges. Meanwhile, the campaigning for the sixth phase of polling came to an end on Tuesday evening.