In west UP’s 8 seats, BJP faced youth, Rajput anger

Actress Hema Malini, actor Arun Govil and BSP-turned Congress-leader Danish Ali are among those whose fates are to be decided in polling in Uttar Pradesh in the second phase on Friday.

In the eight UP seats voting on April 26 – Amroha, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh and Mathura – unemployment was a major issue among the youths, with many expressing anger over leaks of papers in various recruitment exams and the lack of jobs. The BJP had won seven of these seats in 2019, with only Amroha going to the BSP-Samajwadi Party-RLD joint candidate, Danish Ali.

While the SP and Congress are allies this time, the RLD is a partner of the BJP. The BSP is fighting alone.

For the first time in the last five decades, no one from former prime minister Chaudhary Charan Singh’s family is fighting elections from the Baghpat Lok Sabha seat. The RLD has fielded Rajkumar Sangwan, who is facing the SP’s Amarpal Sharma, a former MLA and Brahmin leader. The BSP has made the fight interesting by fielding Gurjar leader Praveen Bainsla.

Like in the first phase, there were three UP seats where the Rajput community expressed its anger openly with the ruling BJP in this phase. As the Samajwadi Party and BSP tried to capitalise on this resentment, the BJP tried to convince the Rajputs through Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s road shows and rallies of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Yogi Adityanath, both from the Rajput community.

Along with this, issues like sugarcane prices and their timely payment, stray animal menace, rising prices and closed factories dominated Meerut, Baghpat, Bulandshahr seats. In Mathura, the cleaning of the Yamuna and development of religious tourism, and setting up of new industries, dominated