Lucknow, 19 May: The fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, which will decide the fates of four union ministers, including Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani, as well as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, will take place on Monday.
Voting will also take place for the Lucknow East assembly constituency by-election. The seats up for election in the fifth phase are Mohanlalganj (SC), Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jalaun (SC), Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (SC), Barabanki (SC), Faizabad, Kaisarganj, and Gonda.
Aside from Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow) and Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), other candidates include Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Rahul Gandhi is running for Rae Bareli, which was formerly held by his mother, Sonia Gandhi, the former Congress president. Over 2.68 crore electors are eligible to vote, with 144 candidates in the running.
The BJP offered tickets to 11 of its incumbent Lok Sabha MPs in this phase, while fresh candidates were nominated in Barabanki (SC) and Kaisarganj. In the INDIA bloc, the Congress has fielded K L Sharma from Amethi, Tanuj Punia from Barabanki (SC), and Pradeep Jain ‘Aditya’ from Jhansi. The Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates are vying for the remaining seats. Defence Minister Singh is seeking a fourth term from Lucknow. He will face sitting SP MLA Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow Central.
Irani is running for office in Amethi, a nearby constituency. The race for the Kaisarganj Lok Sabha seat is between BJP’s Karan Bhushan Singh, son of former MP and ex-president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and SP’s Bhagat Ram.
The Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which includes the temple town of Ayodhya, will be contested between current BJP MP Lallu Singh, who is attempting a hat-trick, and Awadhesh Prasad, the SP MLA from the Milkipur (SC) assembly constituency in Ayodhya district. In Hamirpur, the BJP’s Kunwar Pushpendra Singh Chandel, who is seeking a third term, faces SP’s Ajendra Singh Lodhi. In Gonda, BJP’s Kirti Vardhan Singh, who is seeking a fifth term, faces a challenge from SP’s Shreya Verma.
The major election struggle in Banda is between RK Singh Patel, who is running for a third term, and Krishna Devi Shivshankar Patel of the SP. Vinod Kumar Sonkar, who is seeking a hat-trick of Lok Sabha victories, will face SP’s Pushpendra Saroj, the son of SP leader Indrajeet Saroj, in the Kaushambi (SC) constituency. Voting will also take place for the Lucknow East assembly constituency by-election. On November 9, 2023, sitting MLA Ashutosh Tandon died, necessitating a bypoll in the Lucknow East assembly constituency.
