Four people, including Samajwadi Party candidate Siddhgopal Sahu's son, were injured in clashes between SP and Bahujan Samaj Party voters in the Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh as the state goes to vote in the fourth phase of the assembly elections.
The fourth round of the battle for the throne of Lucknow will take place on Thursday (February 23). Polling in this phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections will take place in 53 constituencies in 12 districts and fates of as many as 680 candidates will be sealed by 1.84 crore voters. Polling will begin at 7 am. UP, which has 403 seats in its Assembly and is considered the most crucial state politically, is in the middle of a seven-phase election, which kicked off on February 11. The final phase will be held on March 8, three days ahead of the declaration of the results of the election in four other states.
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The districts that are going to polls on Thursday are: Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Banda, Chitrakoot, Fatehpur and Rae Bareli. The focus in this phase will be on Raebareli, which has traditionally been a stronghold of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and the backward Bundelkhand region. However, this is the first time since 1998 that the MP from Raebareli — Sonia Gandhi — gave the campaigning in the Assembly segments of her constituency a miss.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be addressing a 'Vijay Shankhnad Rally' in Bahraich and Basti on Thursday.
Total voters: 1.84 crore; 84 lakh are women; 1,032 from third gender
Of the 1.84 crore voters eligible to cast their ballots in the fourth phase, 84 lakh are women while 1,032 belong to the third gender. The maximum number of candidates contesting from one constituency is 26 (Allahabad North), while only six candidates are contesting from Khaga (Fatehpur), Manjhanpur (Kaushambi) and Kunda (Pratapgarh).
SP won 24 of these 53 seats in 2012
Looking back at the 2012 results in the 53 seats that are going to polls on Thursday, the Samajwadi Party had won 24, Bahujan Samaj Party 15, Congress six, BJP five and others 3. Prominent contestants in this phase include sitting MLA Aradhana Mishra from Rampur Khas (Pratapgarh), daughter of Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, and Independent MLA and minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, who is contesting from his traditional Kunda (Pratapgarh) seat.
BJP has most number of tainted candidates in phase four: 19
In this phase, the BJP has the dubious record of topping the list of candidates with criminal cases against them. Out of the 680 candidates in fray, 116 are tainted and of them, 19 belong to the saffron party. The SP comes second with 13, BSP 12 and the Congress eight.
Among the 680 candidates, 189 are crorepatis. The richest candidate is Subhash Chandra, who is contesting as an Independent from Chail (Kaushambi). The average worth of assets owned by the 680 candidates is Rs. 1.9 crore.
