BJP has fielded VP Saroj who had lost to sitting BJP MP Ram Charitra Nishad in 2014.
Machhlishahr Lok Sabha Constituency is one of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh and will go to polls in the sixth phase of general elections on May 12. The seat, reserved for candidates belonging to scheduled castes, covers four assembly segments of Janupur district and one assembly of Varanasi district.
The sitting MP of Machhlishahr is BJP's Ram Charitra Nishad. He has been denied ticket by the party which has fielded VP Saroj, a turncoat who recently left the BSP to join the BJP. Incidentally, Saroj was defeated by Nishad in 2014 Lok Sabha polls by 1.62 lakh votes.
In 2009 when the first election for the newly-reserved seat was held, Tufani Saroj had won on an SP ticket. Before him, bahubali leader Umakant Yadav represented the constituency in parliament after winning on a BSP ticket. The Machhlishahr Lok Sabha seat has been represented by two religious leaders - Ram Vilas Vedanti in 1996 and Swami Chinmayanand in 1998 - on BJP ticket.
This election, BJP's VP Saroj is facing Tribhuvan Ram of the BSP and Amarnath Paswan of the Jan Adhikar party (JAP) which has entered into an alliance with the Congress.
The parliamentary constituency comprises five assembly segments: Machhlishahr (SC), Mariyahu, Zafrabad, Kerakat (SC) and Pindra (Varanasi).
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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