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The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims that it will win all the seats in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to be held in May. The state sends 80 legislators to the Lok Sabha, and 31 legislatures to the Rajya Sabha, making it one of the most important states in national politics.
In the 17th Lok Sabha elections held in 2019, the BJP won 303 seats in a house of 545 seats. Out of 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in UP, the BJP had won 62 seats, and its ally the Apna Dal (S) had bagged two seats in 2019.
In the upcoming general elections, the BJP is confident of winning all 80 seats in UP!
During his last visit to Lucknow, BJP president J. P. Nadda had claimed that his party would win all the 80 seats in the Lok Sabha elections as voters are happy with his party. Nadda pointed out that lakhs of voters have been given homes under the Prime Minister Housing Scheme.
The Jal Jeevan Mission has provided tap water to households while the Ayushman Bharat card given to the poor promises free health coverage up to rupees five lakhs. To win over female voters, the government has provided cooking gas to kitchens all over the state.
Such are the claims of the ruling party despite illiteracy, poverty and gender bias so obviously rampant in UP.
Amethi And Raebareli
In order to win all 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in UP, the BJP is determined to keep the Amethi seat it had won in 2019. Now it plans to wrest Raebareli from the Congress as well. For over two decades Sonia Gandhi has been representing Raebareli.
Ever since she had first contested the Lok Sabha election from UP in 1999, Raebareli has been her stamping ground. Even before that both Amethi and Raebareli have been Congress bastions when the party had wielded immense power and influence in UP for decades.
However the 77-year-old Sonia has decided to retire from active politics and filed her nomination for the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan. She will not contest this election from Raebareli but daughter Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will.
Talking to people in Raebareli revealed that the contest for Priyanka Gandhi will be no cakewalk despite her charismatic connection with the people on the street.
“Voters like Priyanka Gandhi but they are looking for someone who will provide jobs, clean water and far more safety and security on the streets of not only Raebareli but all over UP,” a local reporter told The Citizen.
Clearly the voters do not appreciate the Congress leadership taking their loyalty for granted. The Congress must deliver what the voter wants before it can dream of being voted back to power.
Sonia Gandhi had passed on the Congress leadership to son Rahul Gandhi who resigned after the party's humiliating defeat in the 2019 general elections. In that election the Congress was wiped out of UP.
Rahul Gandhi had lost the Amethi seat in 2019 but won from Wayanad in Kerala. However it is not in the interest of the Congress to give up its influence in the Hindi belt of north India. With that in mind Rahul Gandhi will return to Amethi this year to contest the Lok Sabha election, and where his chances of winning are not bad.
Rahul Gandhi took over Amethi as his constituency in 2004 while Sonia Gandhi had nursed Raebareli till her recent decision to give up active politics. She has decided to move from the Lok Sabha to the Rajya Sabha. This move is part of the Congress decision to not give up on UP. As a Rajya Sabha member from Rajasthan, Sonia Gandhi hopes to do just that.
A shopkeeper in Amethi said that he wants to vote for the Congress and for Rahul Gandhi but regrets that Rahul Gandhi does not spend any time with the people of Amethi who are burdened with multiple economic and social problems.
The inaccessibility of the Congress legislature at the grassroot is the single most reason given by voters for having turned away from the Congress in favour of the BJP in the last general elections held in 2019.
Azamgarh
The other key constituency which the BJP wants to keep for itself is Azamgarh in east UP. This has been a Samajwadi Party (SP) stronghold since 1996 when the SP won four out of nine elections from Azamgarh. The constituency was lost to the BJP in a by-poll held in 2022.
Azamgarh is the constituency of SP founder Mulayam Singh and his successor Akhilesh Yadav. Yadav had won the Lok Sabha constituency in 2019 but gave it up to sit in the state assembly instead. Today, both the SP and the BJP want Azamgarh back.
The Prime Minister (PM) visited Azamgarh recently to lay the foundation stone for several projects and to announce schemes worth over Rs 400 crore. The BJP has a Yadav Chief Minister (CM) in the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh (MP). The MP CM Mohan Yadav too visited Azamgarh recently to reach out to the predominantly Yadav community.
The MP CM reminded the Yadav’s of UP that his ancestors had moved to MP from Azamgarh and that he still has family in the area. The MP CM reminded the Yadav’s of Azamgarh that there were more Yadav families than that of SP chief Akhilesh Yadav.
On the eve of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has promised the people of Azamgarh several airports in UP and a state university named after a 17th century ruler Suheldev from the backward community of the Rajbhar. Just last month the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) chief OP Rajbhar had returned to the BJP and was rewarded with a berth in the UP ministerial cabinet.
The Battle For Varanasi
The other equally coveted seat in UP is Varanasi. This is the constituency of PM Narendra Modi who will be contesting for the third time from here. The BJP is going out of its way to make sure that the PM enjoys a landslide victory in Varanasi.
This is a tough seat for the Congress to win but the party has decided to put up a fight in Varanasi, where voters seem happier with the BJP for having given them temples with a renovated corridor to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, and the hosting of prayers in the southern basement of the Gyanvapi mosque.
