The sixth phase of the UP assembly polls are due on Thursday and one of the most eye-catching contest is in Gorakhpur where chief minister Yogi Adityanath has thrown his hat in the ring.
In all there are 676 candidates in fray of constituencies over 10 districts.
Yogi Adityanath is contesting from Gorakhpur Urban. BJP hasn’t lost this seat since 1989. He is a rare CM since 2012 who is contesting a seat—usually previous chief ministers like Akhilesh Yadav or Mayawati used to opt for the legislative council route.
Adityanath has represented the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat from 1998 to 2017.
Facing Yogi Adityanth is Subhawati Shukla of Samajwadi Party who is wife of BJP’s own leader Upendra Dutt Shukla.
Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad who is contesting as a candidate of the Aazad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram) is also in fray.
This seat will witness a high-stakes battle between BJP and SP as former UP Minister Swami Prasad Maurya is in the poll fray from Fazilnagar. He resigned from the UP cabinet on January 11 and joined SP three days later. After his exit, a few BJP MLAs too change allegiance.
After trouncing his BJP opponent Avadhesh Kumar by a margin of 6287 votes in the 2017 election, Lalji Verma is eyeing another win from Katehari. A member of the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet when Mayawati was the CM, Verma was BSP’s founding member and was serving as the Legislative Party leader.
But, he was sacked from BSP on June 3, 2021, for allegedly indulging in anti-party activities during the Panchayat election and joined SP in November in the presence of Akhilesh Yadav.
