Battle for Allahabad is BJP scion vs SP-Congress scion

In an election where the BJP leadership has consistently used the term “do shehzade (two princes)” to attack Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav in Uttar Pradesh, the battle for the Allahabad Lok Sabha seat is between two scions as well – the BJP’s Neeraj Tripathi and Ujjwal Raman Singh of the Congress.

Neeraj is the son of former state Assembly Speaker and ex-West Bengal Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi, who passed away last year, while Ujjwal’s father Revati Raman Singh represented Allahabad in the Lok Sabha between 2004 and 2014.

The third candidate in the seat, which votes on May 25, is Ramesh Kumar Patel of the BSP.

While his father’s legacy and RSS organisational muscle are Neeraj’s best bet, the BJP candidate who is making his political debut is struggling with the fact that he was not seen around in the area before being pitchforked into the fight. Ujjwal, on the other hand, is a familiar face, being a three-time MLA and former minister in the Mulayam Singh Yadav government.

The Allahabad Lok Sabha seat is currently represented by the BJP’s Rita Bahuguna Joshi, and the party also holds four of the five Assembly segments falling under it (Allahabad South, Karachhana, Koraon and Bara). The fifth segment, Meja, is held by the SP.

In the past, the constituency has been represented by stalwarts like ‘Bharat Ratna’ Purushottam Das Tandon, former PMs Lal Bahadur Shashtri and V P Singh, senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, former UP CM Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna, and film star Amitabh Bachchan.

While Neeraj is a Brahmin, Congress-SP candidate Ujjwal is a Bhumihar.

Neeraj is believed to have warded off competition from sitting MP Rita Bahuguna Joshi and state minister Nand Gopal Gupta to get the seat, and his prospects depend on how the