Campaigning for the third phase of the UP Assembly polls ended on Friday, with senior leaders of all parties making the last-ditch attempt to woo voters in 59 constituencies spread across 16 districts. As many as 627 candidates are in the fray in the third phase, in which over 2.15 crore people are eligible to vote.
The districts where polling will be held are Hathras, Firozabad, Etah, Kasganj, Mainpuri, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Etawah, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur Nagar, Jalaun, Jhanshi, Lalitpur, Hamirpur and Mahoba. The Karhal Assembly seat, from where Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is contesting, will also go to the polls in this phase on Sunday.
The BJP has fielded Union minister S P Singh Baghel from the seat. The polling on Sunday will also seal the fate of the Samajwadi Party chief’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav, who is contesting from his traditional Jaswantnagar seat.
On Friday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra undertook a door-to-door campaigning in Kanpur, Kalpi, Jalaun and Hamirpur while Mayawati addressed election meetings in Jalaun and Auraiya. Earlier, SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav sought votes for his son in Karhal.
The BJP had approached the Election Commission, seeking deployment of paramilitary forces at all booths in Karhal. Among the prominent faces in the fray in this phase are BJP’s Satish Mahana (Maharajpur in Kanpur) and Ramvir Upadhaya (Sadabad in Hathras), and Louis Khurshid, who is contesting on the Congress ticket from Farrukhabad Sadar.
Former IPS officer Asim Arun is contesting from Kannauj Sadar on the BJP ticket while UP minister Ramnaresh Agnihotri is also in the fray in this phase. In the 2017 elections, the BJP had won 49 of the 59 seats while the SP settled for nine. The Congress got one seat and the Bahujan Samaj Party drew a blank. The polling will begin at 7 am on Sunday and continue till 6 in the evening.
With PTI Inputs
