Aonla Lok Sabha constituency, one of the 80 in Uttar Pradesh, is currently held by the BJP’s Dharmendra Kumar Kashyap who won the seat for the first time in 2014 by defeating Samajwadi Party's Kunwar Sarvraj Singh with a margin of over 1.38 lakh votes.
BJP has again fielded Dharmendra Kumar who will face BSP's Ruchi Veera and Congress' Kumar Sarvaraj Singh. Veera is the SP-BSP-RLD Mahagathbandhan's candidate from the seat.
Sarvaraj Singh has won from Aonla for three terms - twice on SP ticket and once on JD(U) symbol. He won from Aonla in 1998 and 1999 on SP ticket but switched to JD(U), which was a BJP ally, in 2004. In 2009, the BJP fielded Maneka Gandhi who was able to win the seat for the first time.
Maneka Gandhi had won from Aonla after a close fight with Dharmendra Kumar, who was then in the SP. She had got 2.16 lakh votes, while Kumar got 2.08 lakh votes that year, a victory margin of less than one per cent.
She then moved to Pilibhit and won from there in 2014.
In 2014, Dharmendra Kumar switched loyalties and joined the BJP. He was declared the party's candidate against Sarvaraj Singh who was back in SP. BJP's Kashyap had got 4.09 lakh of the 9.95 lakh votes polled, to win with 41.16 per cent votes. SP's Kunwar Sarvraj Singh had got 2.71 lakh votes, BSP's Sunita Shakya 1.92 lakh, and Congress' Saleem Iqbal Sherwani 93,823 votes.
In 2019, with the seat going to BSP quota under the seat-sharing agreement of SP-BSP-RLD alliance, Sarvaraj Singh joined the Congress and is contesting against BJP's Dharmendra Kumar Kashyap who is seeking re-election this time. Kumar has earlier had a stint with the BSP also.
The Lok Sabha constituency, which covers parts of Budaun and Bareilly districts, is one of the least developed areas in the region and Veera blames BJP for it.
Holding the BJP responsible for the "backwardness" of the region, Veera says big names like Maneka Gandhi have represented Aonla constituency in Uttar Pradesh but they were never bothered about its development.
The 57-year-old, who has served as an MLA in nearby Bijnor district, said Aonla is considered a BJP stronghold but lacks basic facilities like proper roads, colleges for girls and faces problems of unemployment and farm distress.
The Parliamentary constituency comprises five legislative assembly segments - Aonla, Bithari Chainpur and Faridpur of Bareilly district; Dataganj and Shekhupur of Budaun district.
UP is facing a three-pronged battle between the BJP, the Congress and BSP-SP-RLD alliance. Under the alliance's seat-sharing formula, the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is contesting on 38 Lok Sabha seats of the total 80 seats, Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party on 37 seats and the Chaudhary Ajit Singh's Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on three seats. The alliance has left two for Congress' Sonia Gandhi (Raebareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi).
The polling for the third phase is to be held on April 23 for ten Lok Sabha seats in the Rohilkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. The results of the Lok Sabha election 2019 will be declared on May 23.
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