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Calm as stormy campaign ends for 4th phase of polling in UP
Hectic campaigning, punctuated by bitter personal jibes, came to a close on February 21 evening in 53 Assembly constituencies spread over 12 districts of Uttar Pradesh that will go to polls in the fourth phase on February 23.
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Lucknow
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati were among the host of leaders who made a beeline to backward and water-scarce Bundelkhand region, which also figures in phaseIV of polling.
Assembly segments in Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s Raebareli Lok Sabha constituency will also go to polls in this phase. Other districts going to polls in the fourth phase are Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Banda, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot and Fatehpur. During the highly surcharged campaigning, Modi repeatedly targeted the SP-Congress alliance and the BSP for corruption in their regime.
“SCAM stands for SP, Congress, Akhilesh and Mayawati,” was Modi’s refrain when he appealed to the voters of Bundelkhand to get rid of them. As the prime minister termed BSP as “Behenji Sampatti Party”, Mayawati in her instant retort said the initials of Narendra Damodardas Modi stood for “Mr. Negative Dalit Man”, escalating political temperature with such tit-for-tat barbs.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav held a roadshow in Allahabad, while racing against time BJP president Amit Shah held a parallel roadshow claiming that the BJP was poised for absolute majority.
Comrades feel ‘left’ out in busy poll arena
The Left is no longer ‘right’ in Uttar Pradesh politics today. The Left movement is struggling for survival in the face of a stiff challenge posed by communal and casteist politics in the state. The movement, which had its presence in the state Assembly till 1974, when it won 16 seats, had won one to four seats till 1996.
Thereafter, the Left movement in the state has been marginalised with none of its members entering the portals of the Vidhan Sabha in 2007 and 2012 elections, as the Left parties faced a total rout. “It has been the advent of the politics of caste and religion in the 1990s that pushed Left ideology to the sidelines,” CPI national secretary Atul Kumar Anjaan said.
Notwithstanding the reverses suffered in the last two elections, all the Left parties, including CPI, CPI-M, Revolutionary Socialist Party and Forward Bloc, have together fielded candidates on 140 seats of the total 403 Assembly constituencies in UP this time. Former member of CPI-M central committee SP Kashyap said Left parties have lagged behind due to polarisation on caste and communal lines as these two factors are strongly associated with people’s emotions.
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