New Delhi, 31 May: Thirteen Lok Sabha seats, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Varanasi, will be contested in the final and seventh phases of the general elections on Saturday. Polling in the state, which elects 80 members to the Lower House of Parliament, took place in all seven rounds of the election.
On Saturday, a byelection will be place in the Sonbhadra district’s Duddhi (ST) assembly seat. Six candidates are running for the seat that became vacant when BJP MLA Ram Dular was disqualified due to his conviction in a rape case.
The parliamentary seats that will be polled on are Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon (SC), Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur, and Robertsganj (SC), distributed over 11 districts.
Uttar Pradesh will see a straight confrontation between the BJP-led NDA and the Samajwadi Party and Congress combination, both members of the INDIA bloc. Besides Prime Minister Modi, who is seeking a third term from Varanasi, there are 143 contenders in the race.
Among the prominent Lok Sabha seats are Varanasi, Gorakhpur, which has been represented by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath five times, Chandauli, Maharajganj, and Mirzapur, from which union Ministers Mahendra Nath Pandey, Pankaj Chaudhary, and Anupriya Patel are contesting, respectively, Ghazipur, from which the late Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Afzal Ansari is running, and Ballia, from which former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar’s son Neeraj Shekhar is running. The campaign for Uttar Pradesh’s 13 seats finished Thursday evening.
Of the 144 Lok Sabha candidates in this phase, 134 are men and 10 are women. There are 11 general category seats and two designated for SCs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh were among the top NDA campaigners. INDIA coalition witnessed Congress leaders, including Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, as well as Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav and his wife Dimple Yadav, advocating for alliance candidates in Varanasi and Gorakhpur through roadshows.
While Gandhi ran in Rae Bareli in the fifth phase on May 20, SP fielded Akhilesh Yadav in Kannauj, which went to polls in the fourth phase on May 13, and Dimple Yadav in Mainpuri, where voting took place in the third phase on May 7.
During the campaign, the BJP claimed that if elected, the INDIA alliance would implement Muslim reservation and install the ”Babri lock” on Ayodhya’s Ram temple. The opposition coalition encouraged people to vote against the BJP in order to ”defend” the Constitution and democracy.
The BJP’s major partners, the NISHAD Party and Om Prakash Rajbhar’s SBSP, also field candidates in this phase. Anupriya Patel of the Ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) is seeking reelection. Mayawati’s BSP has also nominated candidates in Varanasi and Gorakhpur. According to State Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa, 2,50,56,877 voters have registered in the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the seventh phase, including 1,33,10,897 males, 1,17,44,922 women, and 1,058 transgender individuals.
According to him, polling parties went for their respective locations on Friday. Rinwa stated that bringing a mobile phone or wireless set inside a voting station is forbidden on June 1. In light of the heat, an appropriate supply of ORS and medical kits would be stored at polling locations, along with provisions for cold water and adequate shade, he stated. Saturday’s voting hours will be from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
