Voting for the 10 parliamentary constituencies spread over 12 districts of Uttar Pradesh will be held in the third phase of the ongoing Lok Sabha election in Uttar Pradesh, amidst tight security arrangements on Tuesday, a senior poll officer said here on Monday.
Chief Electoral Officer of UP Navdeep Rinwa said that the 10 constituencies where polling will be held in this phase include Sambhal, Hathras, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Badaun, Aonla and Bareilly.
“Out of 10 Lok Sabha seats in the third phase, 8 seats are of general category and 2 seats are reserved for Scheduled Caste” he said.
The CEO said that the polling which begin at 7 am will continue till 6 pm at 20,415 polling stations spread over 12,339 polling centres. “For various reasons 4,390 polling stations have been identified as critical where a close monitoring will be done during the poll process,” he said.
Rinwa said that the 10 Lok Sabha seats are spread over 12 districts including Moradabad, Sambhal, Hathras, Aligarh, Agra, Etah, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etawah, Kasganj, Badaun and Bareilly. “More than 1.89 crore electorates, including more than 1.01 crore and 87.69 lakh females are eligible to decide the fate of 100 candidates, including 8 females, in this phase,” he said.
He said that Agra has the highest number of 20,72,685 voters, while Etah has the lowest with 17,524 registered voters in their respective Lok Sabha constituencies. “Bareilly tops the list with 13 candidates, whereas Firozabad has the minimum number of 7 contestants,” the CEO said.
Rinwa said that in order to keep a vigilant eye on the voting, 3 special observers, 10 general observers, 6 police observers, and 14 expenditure observers have been deployed. “Apart from this, 1,887 Sector Magistrates, 241 Zonal Magistrates, 668 Static Magistrates and 2,859 micro observers have also been deployed,” he said.
He said that an adequate strength of paramilitary forces have been deployed to conduct the elections peacefully. “The responsibility of security of the strong rooms has also been entrusted to paramilitary forces. In addition to paramilitary and police forces, arrangements have also been made for air ambulances and helicopters for medical assistance in case of emergency,” he said.
It may be noted that the second phase, third phase of Lok Sabha polls in UP is equally crucial for all the political parties, including ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, INDI alliance of Samajwadi Party (SP), Congress along with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).
The most interesting contest is being witnessed on Mainpuri seat where Dimple Yadav, who is sitting MP and wife of SP president Akhilesh Yadav, is being challenged by the Cabinet Minister in Yogi Government Jaiveer Singh.
In Mainpuri, which is considered to be SP’s bastion, the party has never lost an election since 1996. In fact the former party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav represented it five times in the Lok Sabha. Following Mulayam’s demise in 2022, Dimple Yadav won the seat in the by-poll.
In Sambhal, SP has fielded sitting MLA Zia-ur- Rehman Barq, who is grandson of former MP Shafiqur Rehman Barq. Initially the party gave ticket to Shafiq-ur-Rehman, but he died before the poll process began, after a prolonged illness. Here BJP has fielded Parmeshwar Lal Saini, who contested against Barq in 2019, to reclaim the seat.
In the Agra seat, BJP has fielded again the sitting MP and Union Minister Prof SP Singh Baghel, who will face challenge from SP’s Suresh Chandra Kardan and BSP’s fielded Pooja Amrohi. The ruling party has reposed faith in sitting MP Raj Kumar Chahar on Fatehpur Sikri seat which he won in 2019, by defeating Congress nominee Raj Babbar. This time as a part of INDI alliance with SP Congress has fielded Ramnath Sikarwar from this seat.
In Badaun seatm SP has fielded Aditya Yadav, who is son of party’s national general secretary Shivpal Yadav and cousin of Akhilesh. The party changed its candidate twice for this seat. Initially it declared former MP Dharmendra Yadav as its candidate from this seat but re-named Shivpal as its candidate.
However, keeping in view the local sentiments SP fielded Aditya Yadav. BJP which won the seat in 2019 has replaced the sitting MP Sanghmitra Maurya with Durvijay Shakya.
Hathras, which is considered to be a stronghold of BJP, the party has never lost an election since 1991. Despite huge uproar over the gangrape and murder case, BJP’s Rajvir Singh Diler defeated Ramji Lal Suman of SP in 2019.
Following Diler death due to cardiac arrest, BJP has fielded sitting MLA Anoop Valmiki, who is being challenged Jasveer Valmiki of SP and Hembabu Dhangar of BSP.
