Stage Set for Saturday Square Off in UP as BJP, SP to Blow Poll Bugle in Each Other's Bastion

It’s a race to the finish for Samajwadi Party and BJP in the run-up to the 2022 Uttar Pradesh elections and on Saturday, both the parties will face-off in each other’s bastions to strengthen their cadre and fix issues they faced in the 2017 polls.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav will start the third phase of his ‘Samajwadi Vijay Yatra’ from Gorakhpur, the home turf of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Saturday. At the same time, Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be in Azamgarh — the parliamentary constituency of Akhilesh Yadav — with the chief minister.

In the 2017 UP assembly elections in 2017, the BJP got a thumping majority in the state, riding on the popularity wave of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The party got unexpected success in all the areas divided according to the organisation of the BJP. The BJP and its allies got 46 seats out of 62 assembly seats in the Gorakhpur region (Basti, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh divisions).

However, in the Azamgarh district of the same region, the BJP couldn’t perform too well. On the other hand, Samajwadi Party had captured five of 10 assembly seats in Azamgarh, four seats went to BSP’s account, while the BJP got just one seat. In the 2019 elections of two Lok Sabha seats of Azamgarh district, the BJP was defeated in both. Azamgarh has always been a strong stronghold of SP.

The Lalganj seat of Azamgarh district was won by the BJP during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and the party wants to once again make inroads into the Samajwadi Party bastion. In a push to development, Shah and Yogi Adityanath will lay the foundation of the state university.

In the 2017 assembly elections, the Samajwadi Party could not open its account in Gorakhpur. BJP had captured eight of nine assembly seats in Gorakhpur, while one seat went to BSP. In Kushinagar, of the seven assembly seats, six were won by BJP and one went to Congress. In the 2012 assembly elections, SP had bagged three seats, BSP had got one seat while Congress had got two seats and BJP had got just one seat.

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