UP Phase 5 Polling: SP's prestige at stake with six ministers in fray

Lucknow: A total of 1.84cr voters may exercise their franchise to decide the fate of 607 candidates including nine ministers in the fifth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections to be held on Monday.

The polling will take place in 51 constituencies spread across 11 districts - Ambedkar Nagar, Sultanpur, Amethi, Balrampur, Gonda, Bahraich, Shravasti, Siddharthnagar, Basti, Faizabad and Sant Kabir Nagar.

The fifth phase campaigning that ended on Saturday, touched a new low with the use of foul language and dubbing each other as 'Kabootar', 'Donkey' and even 'Kasab'.

Six ministers including the rape accused Gayatri Prasad Prajapati from the Samajwadi Party are in the fray in fifth phase. The prestige is on the stake for other SP ministers as well including - Awadhesh Prasad, Ram Murti Verma, Vinod Kumar Singh aka Pandit Singh and Tej Narayan Pandey.

Polling on Aalapur seat in Ambednagar constituency will take place on March 9 due to the sudden demise of SP candidate Chandrashekhar Kanaujia.

The highest number of candidates (26) are from the Amethi seat, while Kapilvastu and Itwa in Sidharthnagar have the lowest 6 each.

It may be mentioned that out of the 51 constituencies, Samajwadi Party has 37 assembly seats. BJP and Congress had won 5 seats each in the previous assembly elections. BSP and Peace party had sealed 3 and 2 seats respectively.

Prominent candidates in the fifth phase elections include: Mata Prasad Pandey, BSP state chief Ramachal Rajbhar, Peace Party chief Dr. Ayub, Prateek Bhushan Singh, son of BJP MP Brijbhushan Singh, former state ministers Rajkishore Singh and Yogesh Pratap Singh, Umeshwar Pandey, Close aide of Cabinet Minister Smriti Irani and BSP leader Lalji Verma.