Not just Assembly polls: It's all-out war on the western front in UP

Battle lines drawn in Western UP as voting for first phase begins today

The hotly fought battle for Lucknow will begin on February 10, with the first phase of the seven-phase election largely in Western Uttar Pradesh (UP). Fifty-eight seats will go to polls, of which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 53 in 2017. At stake are the fortunes of all four major national parties – the BJP, the Samajwadi Party (SP), the Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP), and the Congress. However, smaller parties like the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) are also in contention.

Some interesting battles are due in the first phase.

Agra district, with nine Assembly constituencies, is due for election and with a 21 per cent Dalit population, is set for a tight fight. Of a total of 3.46 million voters, Agra accounts for an increase of 217,000 voters in five years -38,640 voters will vote for the first time, among more than 18,000 are women voters, and more than 20,000 are male voters. In 2017, all nine constituencies were won by the BJP. This time, the SP is putting up a tough fight. BSP leader Mayawati kicked off her election campaign from Agra.

In other areas of Western UP, the fight is equally challenging. Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar (otherwise known as Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi) will also go to polls. Ghaziabad has Loni, Muradnagar, Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, and Modinagar constituencies and part of Dhaulana, which is in Hapur district. It is the parliamentary constituency of Minister of State for Power General (Retd) V K Singh. The district has more than 30,000 first-time voters. But the BJP is facing many problems.

In the Ghaziabad Assembly constituency, for instance, a minister in the Yogi Adityanath government, Atul Garg, is facing off against former BJP leader and Vice President for the BJP unit in West UP, K K Shukla, who recently joined the BSP when the BJP did not give him a ticket. Garg won the seat for the BJP in 2017, beating BSP's Suresh Bansal, by nearly 70,000 votes, considered a huge margin for an Assembly seat. However, this time, he might find the going tough. The BSP has a long history of dominance in this region. This seat has over 500,000 voters, nearly 40,000 of whom are Jatavs and over 50,000 are Muslims. The BSP won the seat in 2012.

The Meerut district has seven constituencies and all of them will see an election. Of them, the BJP has replaced three faces, while four, including the controversial Member of the Legislative Assembly Sangeet Som, have been re-nominated. The BJP hopes this clutch of seven constituencies will all go in its favour. The SP and the RLD believe the rural areas that come in the Meerut region and were roiled by farmer protests will vote in their favour.

Senior psephologist Yashwant Deshmukh believes that a lot of ground lost by the BJP in Western UP on account of the farmers’ agitation has been clawed back by the party on the simple issue of law and order. In Meerut, dipstick surveys done by him suggest women voters especially are giving the BJP the thumbs up when it comes to moving safely at night. While this issue will go strongly in the BJP’s favour in urban areas, including all the work done by the BJP in infrastructure development, manifesto promises relating to the farm sector will help the party in rural areas. Either way, Meerut and adjoining areas will be a decisive factor in influencing the outcome in the first phase of the poll, especially for the BJP.