Lok Sabha polls 2024: Who are the key faces in Uttar Pradesh? Which issues could dominate?

India is gearing up to hold general elections, starting next week. The Lok Sabha polls will be held in seven phases from 19 April to 1 June, with the counting of votes on 4 June.

At 80, Uttar Pradesh sends the most MPs to the lower house of Parliament. It is one of the most electorally crucial states. Voting for the Hindi belt state will be held across all seven phases.

Let’s take a closer look.

UP Lok Sabha elections 2024

Out of UP’s total 80 Lok Sabha seats, 17 are reserved for candidates from Scheduled Caste (SC) communities and the rest are unreserved.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 62 of the 80 seats from Uttar Pradesh, while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) led by former state chief minister Mayawati bagged 10 seats.

Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party (SP) had managed to win only five seats and the Congress was limited to one constituency. The BJP ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) had won two seats.

This time, the BJP is fighting in alliance with Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), Apna Dal (S) led by Anupriya Patel, Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) led by Om Prakash Rajbhar and Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD) party. The saffron party is expected to make gains in western Uttar Pradesh owing to its ally RLD.

The BSP is going solo, while Akhilesh Yadav’s SP has tied up with Congress for the Lok Sabha polls. The Congress is contesting from 17 seats, while the SP and other parties of the INDIA alliance will field their candidates from the remaining 63 seats. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) is also in the fray from UP and has joined hands with another regional outfit.

Phase-wise voting in UP

Phase 1: 19 April

Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzzafarnagar, Bijnor, Nagina, Muradabad, Rampur and Pilibhit will go to polling.

Phase 2: 26 April

Amroha, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr (SC), Aligarh and Mathura will vote.

Phase 3: 7 May 

Sambhal, Hathras, Agra, Fatehpur Sikri, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Etah, Badaun, Aonla and Bareilly go to polling.

Phase 4: 13 May 

Shahjahanpur (SC), Lakhimpur Kheri, Dhaurahara, Sitapur, Hardoi, Misrikh, Unnao, Farrukhabad, Etawah, Kannauj, Kanpur, Akbarpur and Bahraich will cast their votes.

Phase 5: 20 May 

Mohanlalganj, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jalaun, Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi, Barabanki, Faizabad, Kaiserganj and Gonda go to ballots.

Phase 6: 25 May 

Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Phulpur, Allahabad, Ambedkarnagar, Shravasti, Dumariyaganj, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Lalganj (SC), Azamgarh, Jaunpur, Machhilshahr and Bhadohi vote.

Phase 7: 1 June 

Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon (SC), Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Robertsganj (SC) will exercise their franchise.

UP LS polls: Key faces and constituencies

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a third straight term, will be contesting from the Varanasi Lok Sabha seat again. He had won the constituency for the BJP in the 2019 polls with a thumping margin of 4,79,505 votes against SP candidate Shalini Yadav.

The Congress has fielded its Uttar Pradesh party unit president Ajai Rai to take on Modi. He lost to the PM in the 2014 and 2019 elections.

Dimple Yadav, the sitting MP from Mainpuri and SP president Akhilesh Yadav’s wife, is again contesting from the constituency. The BJP has given a ticket to UP minister Jaiveer Singh Thakur against her.

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Union minister Rajnath Singh will contest from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, again. The seat has been the BJP’s bastion since 1991. Singh, the sitting MP of Lucknow, will be challenged by SP’s Ravidas Mehrotra and Sarvar Malik from the BSP.

The BJP has retained Maneka Gandhi from Sultanpur Lok Sabha seat, while denying ticket to her son, Varun Gandhi, from Pilibhit. UP minister Jitin Prasada is the party’s candidate from the Rohilkhand district of Pilibhit this time.

Raebareli and Amethi are other major constituencies in UP.

Raebareli was the only seat won by the Congress in 2019. However, its sitting MP Sonia Gandhi is not in the fray this time and has shifted to Rajya Sabha. The Congress and the BJP are yet to announce their candidates from the high-profile seat. While Priyanka Gandhi’s name has been doing the rounds, the Grand Old Party has yet to show its cards.

Union minister Smriti Irani will be fighting on the BJP symbol from Amethi again. She emerged as a giant killer in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls after defeating Rahul Gandhi from the seat. The Congress is yet to lift suspense over its candidate against Irani. Priyanka Gandhi’s husband, Robert Vadra, has expressed interest in taking a political plunge and fighting from the seat so that the people of Amethi get a chance to “correct their mistake” of electing Irani.

Chandrashekhar Azad, national president of the Azad Samaj Party (Kanshiram), the four-year-old political outfit making its Lok Sabha debut, is contesting from Nagina Lok Sabha constituency. He will be facing SP’s Manoj Kumar, BJP’s Om Kumar and BSP’s Surender Pal Singh from the seat.

The BJP has also fielded several celebrity candidates, including Hema Malini from Mathura, Arun Govil from Meerut, Dinesh Lal Yadav ‘Nirahua’ from Azamgarh and Ravi Kishan from Gorakhpur.

Hema Malini is the BJP’s candidate from the Mathura Lok Sabha seat. PTI File Photo

Rampur, a stronghold of now-jailed SP leader Azam Khan, is also up for grabs. SP’s Maulana Mohibullah Nadvi will face the BJP candidate Ghanshyam Singh Lodhi from the seat.

There are speculations that former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav could contest from Kannauj again. The BJP has given a ticket to Subrat Pathak from the seat.

The BJP is yet to announce its candidate for Kaiserganj, a bastion of Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who has been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women wrestlers.

All eyes will also be on Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which consists of Ayodhya. The seats of Saharanpur, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Kairana in western Uttar Pradesh are also to watch out for.

Key issues

Caste, religious and regional fault lines continue to divide Uttar Pradesh.

The SP-Congress alliance will aim to consolidate the votes of Dalits, Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Muslims to counter the BJP’s Hindutva agenda, which resonates across UP.

The BJP is trying to milk the Ram temple opening in Ayodhya. PM Modi has targeted the Congress for “insulting” Lord Ram by not attending the consecration ceremony in January.

The BJP is hoping to gain from the opening of Ayodhya’s Ram temple in the Lok Sabha polls. Reuters File Photo

The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has emerged as an issue among voters in Pilibhit, which houses a considerable number of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, reported PTI. 

The Congress has tried to make unemployment a poll issue in Uttar Pradesh, with its senior leader Jairam Ramesh attacking PM Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath alleging the youth were “taken for a ride”. He also raised the issue of paper leaks.

What do opinion polls predict?

News18 Opinion Poll forecast almost a clean sweep by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA), giving it 77 out of 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh. The bloc could secure a 57 per cent vote share.

The Opposition INDIA alliance could be reduced to two seats, while the BSP may win one.

According to India Today’s Mood of the Nation opinion poll, the BJP-led NDA could win 72 seats in UP. The Samajwadi Party is likely to bag seven seats and the Congress just one, the survey showed.

With inputs from agencies