Saharanpur Lok Sabha constituency, one of the 80 in Uttar Pradesh, is currently held by the BJP’s Raghav Lakhanpal who won the seat for the first time in 2014 by defeating Congress' Imran Masood with a margin of 65,000 votes.
Lakhanpal will again contest from the seat as BJP candidate and will face Imran Masood of the Congress and Haji Fazulrahman of the SP-BSP-RLD 'Mahagathbandhan' who is contesting on a BSP ticket.
In 2009, the seat was won by BSP's Jagdish Singh Rana who came third in the 2014 polls. Before that, Rasheed Masood, the uncle of Imran Masood had won the seat in 2004. Rasheed Masood represented Saharanpur in Lok Sabha five times, first time in 1977.
Saharanpur parliamentary constituency comprises of six Vidhan Sabha segments: Behat, Saharanpur, Saharanpur Nagar, Deoband and Rampur Maniharan.
With two strong Muslim candidates in the parliamentary constituency which has over 40% Muslim population has made the contest here interesting. Both BSP's Fazulrahman and Congress' Masood hold large sway in the area and a polarised campaign is expected to help the BJP in the upcoming elections.
As Congress candidate in 2014, Masood had made controversial remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. He was arrested ahead of the polling for his "chop Narendra Modi into pieces" remark.
Bhim Army, headed by emerging Dalit leader Chandrashekhar Azad, is also a factor in the election.
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 in Saharanpur will be held in first phase of Lok Sabha elections on April 11. The results of the Lok Sabha election 2019 will be declared on May 23.
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