The assembly elections in Goa, Uttarakhand and 55 seats in Uttar Pradesh for the second phase will be held on Monday as per the Election Commission schedule. The fate of political heavyweights such as Goa CM Pramod Sawant and his Uttarakhand counterpart Pushkar Singh Dhami, former Uttarakhand CM Harish Rawat and jailed Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan will be sealed tomorrow.
The high-stake electoral battle is a litmus test for the BJP and the central government’s policies, which have drawn sharp criticism from the opposition Congress and AAP during election campaigns.
Goa
In the coastal state of Goa, 301 candidates are in the fray for 40 assembly seats. The election to all the 40 seats will be held in a single phase. The state is currently ruled by the BJP, which has 17 MLAs and is in alliance with Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Goa Forward Party (GFP) along with three independent candidates. The state with bipolar politics is witnessing a multi-cornered contest this time, with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Trinamool Congress (TMC) and other regional players vying to make a mark.
The prominent candidates include CM Sawant (BJP), Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat (Congress), former CMs Churchill Alemao (TMC), Ravi Naik (BJP), Laxmikant Parsekar (independent), former deputy CMs Vijai Sardesai (GFP) and Sudin Dhavalikar (MGP), late CM Manohar Parrikar’s son Utpal Parrikar (independent) and AAP’s CM face Amit Paleker.
In the run-up to the polls, the state saw the BJP campaigning over former CM Manohar Parrikar’s legacy. Utpal Parrikar is contesting as an independent candidate from his father’s traditional Panaji seat. He had resigned from the BJP after he was denied a ticket from Panaji.
Uttarakhand
The hill state will see polling in 70 seats spread across 13 districts. Uttarakhand has an electorate of 81 lakh, 632 candidates, including 152 independents. Important candidates whose fate is to be decided tomorrow include CM Dhami and ministers in his cabinet Satpal Maharaj, Subodh Uniyal, Arvind Pandey, Dhan Singh Rawat and Rekha Arya.
Dhami is contesting from his current assembly seat Khatima, while four-time MLA and state BJP president Madan Kaushik is contesting from Haridwar. Minister Dhan Singh Rawat is contesting from Srinagar and pitted against state Congress president Ganesh Godiyal.
Voting will begin at 8am and conclude at 6pm in Uttarakhand where there will be 11,697 polling booths. It will be the fifth assembly election to be held in the hill state after its creation in 2000. Seeking a second consecutive term for the BJP, its stalwarts have warned voters against the Congress’ “policy of appeasement” and have highlighted the road, rail and air connectivity projects underway in the state and the ones in the pipeline besides the reconstruction of Kedarnath over the past five years.
The BJP had won 57 out of the 70 seats in Uttarakhand in the last assembly polls limiting Congress to just 11. Two seats had gone to independent candidates. The AAP, which is contesting all the 70 seats, has offered a slew of freebies, including free electricity up to 300 units to every household, Rs 1,000 per month to every woman above 18 years, jobs to every household and an unemployment allowance of Rs 5,000 per month to them until they get a job.
Uttar Pradesh
Over 2 crore people from 55 constituencies in nine districts will be voting in the second phase election of the politically crucial state of UP between 7 am and 6 pm tomorrow. The 55 seats are spread across Saharanpur, Bijnor, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Amroha, Budaun, Bareilly and Shahjahanpur.
Security arrangements have been tightened in 17,000 polling booths across the state. The fate of 586 candidates will be decided in this phase. Muslims influenced by Barelvi and Deoband sects will be voting in this phase, and these areas are considered to be strongholds of the Samajwadi Party. In 2017, the BJP had won 38 seats out of 55 that went to polls in the second phase. The SP and Congress, contesting in alliance, bagged 15 and two seats, respectively. Muslim candidates won in 10 of the 15 seats secured by the SP.
Among significant leaders contesting in the second phase are Azam Khan from Rampur, who is contesting the polls from behind bars, and state finance minister Suresh Khanna from Shahjahanpur. Khan’s son Abdullah Azam has been fielded from the Swar seat. He is pitted against Haider Ali Khan, the heir of another political family, the Nawabs of Rampur, who is trying his luck on the ticket of Apna Dal (Sonelal), a BJP ally.
Dharam Singh Saini, a former minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led cabinet who switched to the SP with some other well-known backward caste leaders, will also be contesting in this phase from the Nakud assembly segment.
Other key players include Nawab Kazim Ali Khan of the Congress from Rampur, SP’s Supriya Aron from Bareilly Cantonment, Keerat Singh Gurjar from Gangoh and BJP’s Devendra Nagpal from Naugawan seat. Aron is the former mayor of Bareilly who switched to the SP from the Congress along with her husband. She was in the grand old party for 15 years. Other important candidates in the fray are outgoing minister of state for Jal Shakti Baldev Singh Aulakh from Bilaspur, minister of state for urban development Mahesh Chandra Gupta from Budaun, and minister of state for secondary education Gulab Devi from Chandausi.
The first round of the seven-phase Uttar Pradesh polls was held on February 10. The counting of votes will be on March 10.
(With PTI inputs)
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