Rahul Gandhi-Akhilesh Yadav; Mayawati; Yogi Adityanath-Arun Govil (L-R).
Credit: PTI Photos
Lucknow: The stage is set for a three-cornered contest in eight Lok Sabha constituencies of Uttar Pradesh going to polls in the second phase on Friday.
Staggered over seven stages, the first phase of the elections held last Friday for 102 seats across 21 states and Union territories saw a voter turnout of around 65.5 per cent.
The poll campaigning for the second phase ended on Wednesday evening with leaders of all the major political parties criss-crossing the constituencies, garnering support for their candidates.
The eight constituencies of Uttar Pradesh where voting will be held on Friday are Amroha, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh and Mathura.
Prominent among the total of 91 candidates whose future will be decided in the second phase are actors-turned-politician Hema Malini, who is seeking a third term from Mathura; and Arun Govil, who played the role of Lord Rama in the famed TV serial Ramayan. He has been fielded by the saffron party from his native place Meerut.
The Congress' Danish Ali from Amroha, and the BJP's Atul Garg from Ghaziabad and Mahesh Sharma from Gautam Buddha Nagar toured their constituencies seeking the people's support.
Altogether, Uttar Pradesh has 80 parliamentary constituencies and polling will take place in all the seven phases of the Lok Sabha election.
With the NDA, the INDIA bloc and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) fielding their candidates, a three-cornered contest is on the cards.
The BJP's campaign for the second phase was led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
For the Samajwadi Party (SP), its president Akhilesh Yadav led the campaign while Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, BSP president Mayawati and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief Jayant Singh were on a hectic campaign trail of these constituencies during the past couple of days.
The pitch for the campaign was set by the prime minister at an election rally in Aligarh, a constituency with a sizeable Muslim population, on Monday accusing the Congress of planning to redistribute the people's property if it is voted to power, but stopped short of saying that the wealth would go to Muslims.
Modi accused the opposition Congress and the SP of following a policy of appeasement and yet doing nothing to uplift the socio-economic condition of the community.
Yadav hit out at the BJP, saying 'Speaking wrong things about a particular community by naming it is an insult to that community spread across the world'.
Mayawati, in a poll rally at Bulandshahr the same day, accused the BJP of taking credit for the development of the Noida and Greater Noida region by the BSP while it was in power in the state.
The stakes are high for the ruling BJP as among the eight constituencies going to the polls, it had won seven seats in the 2019 elections while the BSP had bagged Amroha.
There are 1.67 crore voters in these eight Lok Sabha constituencies, out of which 90.11 lakh are male voters, 77.38 lakh are female voters and 787 are of the third gender.
There are a total of 7,797 polling stations and 17,677 polling booths in these constituencies.