Lucknow, Jan 27: Campaigning for the first phase of polls for 58 seats covering 11 districts in western Uttar Pradesh has picked up. Pooling of these districts will decide the fate of at least 9 ministers in the present Yogi Adityanath’s government.
Uttar Pradesh BJP has infused all its strength as Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, J. P. Nadda along with UP CM Yogi Adityanath and his two deputies Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dr. Dinesh Sharma were holding door to door campaigning in order to win the votes.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and RLD chief Jayant Choudhury too will hold a press conference in Muzaffarnagar on Friday before campaigning. BSP president Mayawati will hold a public meet in Agra on February 2.
January 27 is the last day for withdrawal of nominations in the first phase. Yogi cabinet minister Atul Garg is in the fray from the Ghaziabad seat.
In the 2017 elections Atul Garg defeated his nearest rival BSP rival Suresh Bansal by a huge margin of 70,055 votes to win the Ghaziabad city assembly seat. BJP’s candidate from Thana Bhawan seat of Shamli district, Suresh Rana is the Sugarcane Minister in the UP government. Rana won this seat for the first time in 2012 by defeating Ashraf Ali Khan of the RLD by just 265 votes. Rana’s name also came in the Muzaffarnagar riots and was also made an accused, but he managed to win in the 2017 elections against Abdul Warish Khan of BSP by a margin of more than 16,000 votes.
UP Power Minister Shrikant Sharma is an MLA from Mathura city. In 2017, he defeated Pradeep Mathur, a three-time MLA from Congress, by a huge margin. The Mathura assembly seat was occupied by Congress for 15 years from 2002 to 2017. Shrikant Sharma got 1,43,361 votes, while Pradeep Mathur of Congress, who was a three-time MLA from this seat at number two got 42,200 votes.
Sandeep Singh grandson of former Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, and Minister of State in the Yogi government has filed his nomination from Atrauli assembly seat which is dominated by former chief minister Kalyan Singh and his family. In the 2017 election, Sandeep won by more than 50,000 votes. Till now, Kalyan Singh and his family members have reached the assembly by winning this seat a total of 11 times.
Talking about the political history of this assembly seat, he said Kalyan Singh contested the election on Jana Sangh ticket for the first time from here in 1962. Although he lost to the Congress candidate, but won in 1967, after which he became dominant in this seat.
UP Forest and Environment Minister Anil Sharma is in the fray from Shikarpur assembly seat of Bulandshahr district which is considered a BJP stronghold and the party has won this seat five times so far. BJP has once again given ticket to Anil Sharma. In 2017, Anil Sharma won defeating Mukul Upadhyay of BSP by more than 50,000 votes, after which Anil Sharma was made a minister of state in Yogi Adityanath’s government.
Kapil Dev Agarwal, minister in Yogi government is in the fray from Muzaffarnagar Sadar assembly seat which he won in 2017 after defeating Gaurav Swarup Bansal of Samajwadi Party by a margin of 10704 votes. UP Minister of State for Flood Control Dinesh Khatik is contesting from Hastinapur assembly seat of Meerut district. MLA Dinesh Khatik is a resident of Falavada Kasba of Mawana police station area. He contested the seat for the first time in 2017 and won after defeating BSP candidate Yogesh Verma.
Minister of State for Social Welfare, Dr. GS Dharmesh won the Cantonment Assembly seat in 2017 election, by a margin of 45,000 votes. He had lost the same seat in 2012 by a margin of 5,000 votes. Dairy and Animal Husbandry Minister Chaudhary Laxmi Narayan has filed his nomination after being declared a candidate from Mathura’s Chhatta assembly seat. He is a sitting BJP MLA from this seat. In 1996, Laxmi Narayan reached the assembly after winning on a Congress ticket. In 2007, Chaudhary Laxmi Narayan was elected MLA on a BSP ticket. In the 2017 assembly elections, Chaudhary Laxmi Narayan won the seat on a BJP ticket, thus making him an four time MLA from different parties. Last time he defeated former minister Thakur Tejpal’s son and independent candidate Atul Singh Sisodia in the elections.
