Lok Sabha polls: Triangular contest on cards in West UP as campaigning ends for first phase

Lucknow: A triangular contest appears to be on the cards on the eight Lok Sabha seats going to the polls in the first phase of Lok Sabha elections on Friday in western and central Uttar Pradesh where campaigning came to an end on Wednesday evening.

Polling would be held at Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina (Reserved), Moradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit LS seats in the first phase of the elections. Around 1.43 crore voters are expected to exercise their franchise to choose from 80 contestants including 73 men and seven women candidates.

While it was initially predicted that the contests on these seats, where Jats (Kairana, Muzaffarnagar), Muslims (Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Bijnor, Rampur, Moradabad), dalits (Nagina) and OBC (Pilibhit), were dominant forces, would mainly be between the BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP), BSP's strategy to field strong candidates hailing from Muslim, Jat, and Thakur communities appears to have made the fight triangular on almost all the eight seats.

The BJP, which has allied with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a predominantly Jat outfit to garner their support and repeat its 2019 LS poll performance, is banking almost completely on prime minister Narendra Modi's appeal to romp home this time again.

Modi as well as saffron clad UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who addressed a number of election meetings in the region, sought support of the electorate citing construction of a grand Ram Temple, scrapping Article 370, criminalising triple talaq as also the welfare schemes launched by the state and central governments.

The SP and Congress alliance, on the other hand, hopes to cash in on the reported anger among the 'thakur' and 'Tyagi' communities against the BJP, rising prices of essential commodities, unemployment and the Agniveer scheme. The alliance is also banking on the support of the Muslims on almost all these seats. SP president Akhilesh Yadav addressed several election meetings on these seats while Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi also addressed public meetings and held roadshows.

The BSP, however, threatens to derail the electoral calculations of both the BJP and the I.N.D.I.A. alliance in the first phase of polling. The party has this time selected its candidates keeping in mind the caste and community equations. Its candidates are expected to make a dent into the vote banks of the saffron party as well as the SP-Congress alliance. The BSP has fielded a thakur in Kairana, an OBC in Muzaffarnagar and Muslims in Saharanpur, Rampur and Moradabad.

With no discernible wave in favour of any party, the caste and communal equations were likely to play a prominent role in deciding the outcome of the polls, according to the political analysts here.

Prominent among those, whose fate would be decided in the first phase of polling in the state included former union minister Sanjeev Baliyan, UP minister Jitin Prasada, Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar alias Ravan.