Close contest between BJP and India Alliance on Phulpur and Allahabad Lok Sabha seats.

Report by Dayashankar Tripathi.

Bureau Prayagraj. On the day of voting, a close contest was witnessed between the candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the All India Alliance on both the Lok Sabha seats of Prayagraj. The BSP appeared unsuccessful in contesting on both the seats, due to which the results may be surprising.

Let us tell you that Prayagraj has two Lok Sabha seats, one is Phulpur and the other is Allahabad. A close fight was seen in all the five assembly constituencies between BJP candidate Praveen Patel from Phulpur Lok Sabha seat and India Alliance Samajwadi candidate Amarnath Yatra Maurya. In this region, two assembly constituencies City North and City West come under the city, while three assembly constituencies Phulpur, Sorav and Phaphamau are located in rural areas.

In all three assembly constituencies of the rural areas, a direct fight was seen between the Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party candidates. BSP candidate Jagannath Pal's agent was not seen at any polling booth. Neither did any senior party leader hold any meeting or campaign during his election campaign. This proved that he had contested the elections on these two seats only to mark his presence.

Despite less voting in the city north, the BJP appeared to have an upper hand. In the city west, the fight between the two candidates was visible. Experts say that despite being elected MLA three times from Phulpur assembly constituency, India Alliance Samajwadi Party candidate Amarnath Maurya was successful in giving a tough fight to BJP candidate Praveen Patel.

In this election, caste issues were more visible than national issues. Due to which the contest has become very interesting. In Soraon assembly constituency, the MLA is from Samajwadi Party, whereas in the remaining four assembly constituencies, despite the MLAs being from Bharatiya Janata Party, the fight was not one-sided. This proved that the MLAs were not able to make an impact in their respective areas in this election, but the simplicity, ease, friendliness and politeness of the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate definitely impressed the voters, which was proving to be an overpowering effect on Amarnath Maurya.

In Phulpur, voting percentage has gone down by almost 2.5% compared to last time, which could prove to be damaging for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

If we look at the political history of both the candidates, Amarnath Maurya was contesting elections for the first time, whereas BJP candidate Praveen Patel has a family political history. His father had been an MLA from here thrice and he is also an MLA from Phulpur assembly for the third time. National leaders held huge public meetings here for both the candidates. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath themselves addressed huge public meetings in favour of BJP and left no stone unturned in creating an atmosphere. On the other hand, Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav successfully created an atmosphere by gathering a huge crowd by holding a joint rally for the India Alliance candidate.

Despite the BJP having MPs on both seats, their activism was not as much as it should have been. This also became a topic of discussion among the voters of the area. While Kesari Devi Patel is the current MP from Phulpur, Rita Joshi is the MP from Allahabad seat.

Allahabad seat witnessed a direct contest between two political families in which Congress candidate Ujjwal Raman Singh's father Revati Raman Singh is considered one of the stalwart leaders of Samajwadi Party and he has been elected MLA from Karchana assembly for eight consecutive times. And once he became a topic of discussion in the whole country by defeating BJP's stalwart leader Murli Manohar Joshi from Allahabad Lok Sabha constituency. Neeraj Tripathi is the son of former Speaker of the Assembly and Governor of West Bengal Pandit Kesari Nath Tripathi. Pandit Kesari Nath Tripathi was respected as a very popular and reputed leader in the political field of Allahabad region, which can benefit his son, BJP candidate Neeraj Tripathi.

There are five assembly constituencies in this seat. Here too, except for Meja assembly constituency, all the four assembly constituencies have BJP MLAs at present and Nand Gopal Nandi from the city south constituency is also a minister in Uttar Pradesh. It is also the home district of Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya. Despite this, if BJP fails to win both these seats, it will be considered surprising.