Election for 59 assembly seats spread across 16 districts of Uttar Pradesh are being held for the third phase. Polling will be held in districts including Hathras, Firozabad, Etah, Kasganj, Mainpuri, Farrukhabad, Kannauj, Etawah, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Kanpur Nagar, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Hamirpur and Mahoba.
However, the third phase of polling has several hotseats like Karhal, Jaswantnagar, Kannauj Sadar and Sadabad.
News18 takes a look at 10 key contests in the third phase of UP Elections:
Karhal
In the Karhal assembly seat, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is contesting against BJP’s Union minister SP Singh Baghel. The constituency has been a bastion of the Yadav family where the SP has lost just once since 1992. Meanwhile, SP Singh Baghel, who is contesting from BJP, has been the former PSO of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
Jaswantnagar
In Jaswantnagar seat, Samajwadi Party chief’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav is contesting from his traditional seat. It is from this seat that Mulayam Singh Yadav started his electoral journey and went on to win seven times.
Harhtras Rural
The Hathras constituency, reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates, is being keenly watched in UP election more than a year after the rape and murder of a Dalit girl made the seat a political flashpoint. The alleged forced cremation of the victim in the dead of the night by local police saw Opposition leaders like Priyanka Gandhi Vadra march to Hathras to stage protests. Against this backdrop, women’s safety is one of the key election issues this time.
BJP has fielded Anjula Mahaur, the former mayor of Agra who is fighting her first Assembly election. SP has fielded Braj Mohan Rahi as its candidate, while Kuldeep Kumar Singh is the Congress contestant.
Kannauj Sadar
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded former IPS Asim Arun against Samajwadi Party’s three-time incumbent SP MLA Anil Dohre in this UP city. The Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Samarjeet Singh Dohre and the Congress has fielded Vineeta Devi. The Kannauj Sadar seat houses 427488 registered voters, of which 2,27,928 are males and 1,99,547 are females.
Maharajpur
The ruling BJP has fielded seven-time sitting MLA Satish Mahana from Maharajpur, while the SP has put up Fateh Bahadur Singh Gill. The Congress has nominated Kanishka Pandey and Surendra Pal Singh is the BSP contestant. Satish Mahana has been the MLA in the seat for 30 years.
Sadabad
In the seat, four parties have emerged victorious in the last five elections. Former BSP MLA Ramveer Upadhyay, who is contesting on a BJP ticket, will try to repeat his victory. Guddu Chaudhary will contest the election from the SP alliance, while BSP’s Avin Sharma will also contest from the seat.
Bilhaur
For close to 40,000 voters living in Bikru and a dozen other surrounding villages in the Bilhaur assembly constituency of Kanpur district, the ‘Vikas Dubey’ factor will not be in play when they go to cast their votes this Sunday. According to local residents, issues of development, law and order, jobs and excess of stray cattle will be prominent factors on which voting will be done in the Bilhaur constituency.
In the seat, Bhagwati Prasad Sagar, who won the Bilhaur assembly seat on a BJP ticket in 2017, has switched sides and will contest from the BSP. BJP, meanwhile, has fielded Rahul Bachha Sonkar and Congress has fielded Usha Rani Kori.
Etawah
Hoping to wrest back its bastion from the BJP, the Samajwadi Party has fielded Sarvesh Kumar Shakya against sitting BJP MLA Sarita Bhadauriya. Mohd Rashid is the Congress candidate and Kuldeep Gupta is the BSP contestant.
Govindnagar
The ruling BJP has fielded sitting MLA Surendra Maithani in Govindnagar, while the SP-RLD alliance has pitted Vikas Yadav against him. The Congress has given the ticket to Karishma Thakur and Ashok Kumar Kaliya is the BSP candidate.
Jhansi
The BJP has fielded sitting MLA Ravi Sharma in Jhansi Nagar, while the SP-RLD alliance has fielded Sita Ram Kushwaha from the former. Rahul Richhariya is the Congress contestant and Kailash Sahu is the BSP candidate. Ravi Sharma has been winning the seat since 2012.
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