Sonia Gandhi hasn't campaigned during the elections.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi wrote an open letter appealing to people to vote for the Cong-SP alliance in UP while hitting out at PM Modi. She has been absent from the campaign trail, leading to speculation that she wasn’t happy with the alliance.
Sonia said that she couldn’t be with people during the campaign for ‘some reasons’ and hit out at Modi claiming he could go to any extent to save his chair. While Gandhi acknowledged that the people of UP had voted for BJP in 2014, she asked voters to rethink before casting their votes. She has not campaigned for a single rally in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa -- the five states where elections are on.
Goa, Punjab and Uttarakhand have voted while staggered polling in Uttar Pradesh that began on February 11 will end on March 8. Manipur votes on March 4 and 8. Results of all the elections will be known on March 11.
This is the first time that Gandhi hasn’t for her party since 1998. She was expected to campaign for Aditi Singh in Rae Bareli but hasn’t been seen on the trail. It’s believed that she is not doing well after she took ill last year after a public meeting in Varanasi and skipped to the budget session of parliament this month.
Hectic campaigning, punctuated by bitter personal jibes, came to a close this evening in 53 Assembly constituencies spread over 12 districts of Uttar Pradesh that will go to polls in the fourth phase on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and BSP supremo Mayawati were among the host of leaders who made a beeline to backward and water-scarce Bundelkhand region, which also figures in phase-IV of polling.
Assembly segments in Congress President Sonia Gandhi's Raebareli Lok Sabha constituency will also go to polls in this phase.
Other districts going to polls in the fourth phase are Pratapgarh, Kaushambi, Allahabad, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Banda, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot and Fatehpur.
During the highly surcharged campaigning, Modi repeatedly targeted the SP-Congress alliance and the BSP for corruption in their regime.
"SCAM stands for SP, Congress, Akhilesh and Mayawati," was Modi's refrain when he appealed to the voters of Bundelkhand to get rid of them.
As the prime minister termed BSP as "Behenji Sampatti Party", Mayawati in her instant retort said the initials of Narendra Damodardas Modi stood for "Mr. Negative Dalit Man", escalating political temperature with such tit-for-tat barbs.
"Narendra Damodardas Modi means Mr. Negative Dalit Man, he is anti-dalit...this negative dalit man does not like that common people give small contributions in running the BSP movement which is also run through donations," an irked Mayawati said.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav held a roadshow in Allahabad, while racing against time BJP president Amit Shah held a parallel roadshow in 'Sangam Nagari', as Allahabad is also called, claiming that the BJP was poised for absolute majority.
Amid the verbal free-for-all, Akhilesh referred to an advertisement of the tourism department of Gujarat, where Modi was CM before assuming the office of prime minister. Without taking any name, he advised megastar Amitabh Bachchan, "do not advertise for the donkeys of Gujarat". BJP took exception to such "cheap remarks", with its UP General Secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak saying, "After family drama, SP is now dabbling in filmy drama."
The fate of 680 candidates will be decided by 1.84 crore
voters including 84,000 women and 1,032 of third gender.
The maximum number of 26 candidates are in Allahabad North, while only six candidates are in fray in Khaga (Fatehpur), Manjhanpur (Kaushambi) and Kunda (Pratapgarh).
In 2012 polls, out of the 53 seats in this phase, SP had won 24, BJP 5, BSP 15, Congress 6 and 'others' 3.
Prominent among those in the fray are sitting MLA Aradhana Mishra from Rampur Khas (Pratapgarh), who is daughter of Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, and Independent MLA and minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, who is again contesting from his traditional Kunda (Pratapgarh) seat.
In Sonia's constituency Raebareli, Aditi Singh is contesting on Congress ticket, BSP turncoat Swami Prasad Maurya's son Utkarsh Maurya is in fray from Unchahar seat, while Leader of Opposition Gaya Charan Dinkar is contesting from Naraini (Banda) seat.
Senior SP leader Reoti Raman Singh's son Ujjwal Raman Singh is in the race from Karchana (Allahabad) seat.
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