Jaunpur has never elected a sitting MP since 1971. Will KP Singh of the BJP will break the jinx?
Jaunpur Lok Sabha constituency, one of the 80 seats in Lok Sabha, goes to polls in the sixth phase of general elections on May 12. The constituency is one of the two seats in Jaunpur district in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
Currently held by BJP's Krishna Pratap Singh, Jaunpur has never elected a sitting MP since 1971. In 2014, the Congress had fielded Bhojpuri star Ravi Kishan from here who lost badly. He has now joined the BJP and is contesting from Gorakhpur.
The constituency has a huge number of Thakur voters, (more than 15%) and has sent seven times MPs from the community. The constituency also has a significant number of Yadav voters and every political party relies on caste calculation while fielding a candidate here.
Before KP Singh who won in 2014 with a margin of 1.47 lakh votes, local strongman and a mafia-turned-politician Dhananjay Singh won from here in 2009 on a BSP ticket. He, however, was denied ticket by his party after being arrested by Delhi police over the death of a maid at his home in the national capital.
The constituency was represented by spiritual guru Swami Chinmayanand who was also a minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
Parasnath Yadav of the Samajwadi Party has been elected twice - 1998 and 2004 - from here. He again wanted to contest from here but under the alliance arrangement, the seat went to the BSP which has fielded Shyam Singh Yadav. His candidature is one of most-talked-about topics in eastern UP as it has become a unifying force among votes of SP and BSP. It is considered rare for a Yadav to get a ticket from Mayawati's BSP.
The Congress has fielded Devvrata Mishra, a Brahmin, from Jaunpur. His candidature is said to be a strategic as the grand old party does not have a much base in the district (last Congress candidate won from here in 1984) but aims to divide upper caste voters of the BJP.
While Shyam Singh Yadav is a retired Provincial Civil Services (PCS) officer, BJP's KP Singh comes from an influential Kshatriya family which manages TD College in the city.
The parliamentary constituency comprises five assembly segments: Badlapur, Shahganj, Jaunpur, Malhani and Mungra Badshahpur.
UP is facing a triangular 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 (Rae Bareli) and Rahul Gandhi (Amethi).
In sixth phase of Lok Sabha polling, 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh - Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Phulpur, Allahabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Shrawasti, Domariyaganj, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Lalganj, Azamgarh, Jaunpur, Machhlishahr and Bhadohi - are going for polls.
Of these seats, 13 were won by the BJP in 2014 elections with only Azamgarh going to the Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav.
The counting of votes of the Lok Sabha election 2019 will be conducted on May 23.
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