Campaign ends for Nov 20 bypolls to nine Assembly seats in UP

Lucknow, Nov 18 (PTI) Amid intense sloganeering by the leaders of different political parties, campaigning for the November 20 byelections to nine Assembly segments in Uttar Pradesh came to a close on Monday evening.

The high-pitched campaign saw senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and his deputies Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, among others, canvas extensively for the party nominees.

Similarly, senior leaders of the Samajwadi Party (SP), including its chief Akhilesh Yadav and his wife and Mainpuri Lok Sabha MP Dimple Yadav, also sought votes for their party candidates.

For the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), its state unit chief Vishwanath Pal campaigned extensively for the party nominees.

However, the Congress and the Samajwadi Party, which are part of the opposition INDIA bloc, did not hold a joint election rally during the campaigning period.

The bypolls will be held at Katehari in Ambedkar Nagar, Karhal in Mainpuri, Meerapur in Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Majhawan in Mirzapur, Sisamau in Kanpur city, Khair in Aligarh, Phulpur in Prayagraj, and Kundarki in Moradabad on November 20, and the results will be out on November 23.

While eight of these constituencies fell vacant after the sitting MLAs were elected to the Lok Sabha, Sisamau is going to the bypoll after incumbent SP MLA Irfan Solanki was convicted in a criminal case.

A total of 90 candidates are in the fray for the bypolls, with Ghaziabad having the maximum nominees at 14, while Khair (SC) and Sisamau have the minimum numbers at five each.

In the 2022 Assembly polls, Sisamau, Katehari, Karhal and Kundarki were held by the SP, while the BJP won Phulpur, Ghaziabad, Majhawan and Khair.

The Meerapur seat was won by the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), which is now an ally of the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

On the last day of campaigning on Monday, Union minister Jayant Chaudhary, former Chief Minister and SP President Akhilesh Yadav, and two party chiefs – AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi and Chandrashekhar Azad of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) – sought votes for their respective candidates at Meerapur in western Uttar Pradesh.

While the Congress is not contesting the bypolls and supporting its INDIA bloc partner SP, the BSP is going solo in all the nine seats.

The Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has fielded candidates in Ghaziabad, Kundarki and Meerapur, while the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) of Chandrashekhar is contesting all the seats barring Sisamau.

As the election campaign intensified, Yogi Adityanath on November 10 gave a new definition to Samajwadi Party's coinage 'PDA', terming it as "Production house of Dangai (rioters) and Apradhi (criminals)".

Adityanath also called Akhilesh Yadav the "CEO" of this "production house", Shivpal Yadav its "trainer", and all the criminals as its "business partners".

'PDA' was an acronym coined by Akhliesh Yadav for the 'Pichhde' (backwards), Dalits and 'Alpsankhyak' (minorities).

In response to Adityanath’s jibes, Yadav sought accountability from the state government on the supply of fertilisers to the farmers.

Addressing an election rally at Katehari in Ambedkar Nagar district, the SP chief claimed that Adityanath will lose his chair after the byelections and BJP's defeat in the Maharashtra Assembly polls.

Accusing the chief minister of "spreading hatred in the society", Yadav claimed that people from Adityanath’s own party are digging a "tunnel" underneath his chair to remove him.

Meanwhile, after evading questions on Adityanath's controversial "batenge toh katenge" slogan, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Sunday described it as a call for unity as he questioned the opposition for having a "stomach ache" over the phrase.

The slogan frequently used by Adityanath on his campaign trail has united the opposition in its condemnation ahead of the bypolls, claiming that it has communal overtones.

"The slogan -- 'if we stay united, we will be safe, if we divide, we will be cut' -- used in their speeches by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is a symbol of unity and determination for all the party workers. There was never a difference of opinion in the BJP on this," Maurya said in a post in Hindi on X.

"The slogan comes straight from the heart of party workers like me. The BJP's slogan is 'if we stay united, we will be safe',” he added. PTI NAV ARI