Uttar Pradesh, Manipur poll campaign ends, all eyes on March 8

The highlight of the acrimonious campaign for the March 8 polls for 40 seats in eastern Uttar Pradesh was the show of strength by the BJP, the SP-Congress combine and the BSP in PM Narendra Modi’s Varanasi constituency where he camped for three days. 

Manipur will see polling in 22 seats across five districts in its second and final phase, where the fate of almost all the big names in the north-eastern state’s politics — including Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh, Deputy CM Gaikhangam and human rights activist-turned-politician Irom Chanu Sharmila — will be decided. 

In Uttar Pradesh, the Prime Minister visited temples, held a roadshow and attended numerous public events in the holy city along with several rallies in the region, in the final push by the BJP to reach out to voters ahead of the seventh and last phase. Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi also matched it with their own campaign blitz in the region. 

Joined by Akhilesh’s wife Dimple, the two leaders held a roadshow, hours after Modi arrived in the city and paid obeisance at the Kashi Vishwanath and Kal Bhairav temples with much fanfare. BSP chief Mayawati, who is seeking a fifth term as Chief Minister, also addressed a rally in Rohaniya, around 20 km from Varanasi the same day. 

A galaxy of BJP veterans and Union ministers also made a beeline to Varanasi towards the fag end of electioneering, making the poll atmosphere highly charged. In Manipur Sharmila, who fasted for 16 years for repealing the AFSPA from the state, is in the election fray for the first time and is pitted against Ibobi Singh himself. The voting will take place on Wednesday and the counting of votes polled in all the seven phases of the Assembly polls will be taken up on March 11.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday made an impassioned plea to voters to defeat SP-Congress combine and BSP, blaming these parties for the plight of Uttar Pradesh, as he wrapped up his hectic campaign for Assembly polls.

Addressing a rally at Khushipur village in Rohaniya Assembly segment, 25 kms from the city, Modi, who has been campaigning in his Lok Sabha constituency here for three days, repeated the promise of waiving farmers’ loans and restoring professionalism of the police force if BJP comes to power in the state. Describing himself as a person who “has experienced poverty and therefore wants to improve the lot of the poor”, the PM said his government was aiming at providing houses to every single household in the country by 2022, when the country celebrates 75 years of Independence. 

Modi began his 45-minute-long speech with a special mention of Apna Dal and Bharatiya Samaj Party, which are fighting 20 of the 403 seats in UP in alliance with the BJP.  The Prime Minister, who returned to New Delhi after the rally, began his day with a visit to Garhwa Ghat ashram – a monastery run by a sect devoted to the Bhakti tradition. From Garhwa Ghat, Modi went to Ramghat, where he paid floral tributes at a statue of Lal Bahadur Shastri and spent a few minutes at the house where the former Prime Minister had spent his early childhood.