UP Elections 2017: Low 57.37% turnout in Phase 5 could wreck parties' plans

The fifth round in the battle for Uttar Pradesh's crown for 51 assembly constituencies in its 11 districts was fought on Monday in which 57.37 percent people came out to vote.

The phase, which had many interesting fights and covered some of the most politically important seats of UP like Amethi and Ayodhya, is also considered the litmus test for all the main political parties.

It is crucial for the SP-Congress alliance because there are some six seats from which candidates of both parties contested despite being in alliance. There were also as many as seven districts from which Congress did not field any candidate due to the alliance. The phase also put to test BSP's attempt to forge a Dalit-Muslim combine with nearly a fifth the Mayawati's 99 Muslim candidates facing polls in this region. There were 16 Muslim candidates from BSP in this phase as against SP's 9.

This phase is equally important for BJP as it had done exceptionally well in these districts in the 2014 general election. A neck-to-neck triangular contest between SP-Congress, BJP-Apna Dal and BSP is expected in most of the constituencies.

The phase, which covered the extremely backward areas of UP along the Nepal border in the Terai region, ironically had many crorepatis and even royal candidates in the fray. Though the phase had many interesting fights, the most watched out triangular contest was witnessed in Amethi assembly seat where two queens –the former wife of Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh BJP's Garima Sinh fought against his present wife Ameeta Sinh of Congress. The controversial minister of Akhilesh Yadav's cabinet Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, also the sitting MLA from Amethi, was also in the fray here and made the contest a three- cornered poll battle.

The 11 districts--located in Awadh, Terai belt and Eastern UP--which went to polls on Monday were Balrampur, Gonda, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Bahraich,Siddharth Nagar, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Amethi, Sultanpur and the capital of ancient India Shrawasti, where Gautam Buddha spent 24 years.

In 2012, SP sweeped the region by winning 36 out of 51 seats. Congress won 5, BJP 5, BSP 3 and Peace Party 2. BJP-Apna Dal alliance, however, swept in 2014 and was ahead in 44 assembly segments, SP and Congress were ahead in four each and BSP one. BJP contested in 50 constituencies and its ally Apna Dal on one seat, BSP in all the 51, SP in 43 and Congress at 14 places.

The prominent candidates in this phase included eight ministers in Akhilesh Yadav government, Speaker in the outgoing assembly Mata Prasad Pandey (Etawah), BSP state president Ram Achal Rajbhar (Akbarpur) and Peace Party president Muhammad Ayub (Khalilabad).

Though there were 52 seats in phase five, voting took place in only 51 constituencies. Voting in Alapur has been deferred to 9 March due to the death of the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Chandrashekhar Kanaujia. The earlier four phases have fared better in voter turnout when compared to phase five as all of them have crossed the 60 percent mark. Chief election officer T Venkatesh, however, told journalists that voter turnout percentage in phase five may go up by a certain extent as the final calculations were yet to be done.

The percentage of Muslims in the eleven districts is higher that the state average of 18 percent and therefore, they were the most sought-after vote block in this phase. Muslims dominate districts like Bahraich(56%), Nanpara (73%) and Kaiserganj (60%). The districts Shravasti, Gonda, Sidharth Nagar and Balrampur also had size able Muslim populations. Ambedkar Nagar recorded the highest voter turnout in the region with 64.88% while Sant Kabir Nagar saw the least number of voters. Only 50.31 %voters came out to vote in this district. Disclosing details of voting, Venkatesh also said that a village named Parsauli in Amethi district boycotted the elections completely.

This probably explains why Ayodhya, which has traditionally been a BJP seat except once in 2012 when SP won from here, had a Muslim candidate in the fray this time. In Ayodhya, for the first time after independence, any major political party fielded a Muslim candidate. BSP has taken a chance in this politically vibrant seat by fielding Bazmi Siddiqui.

The sizeable Muslim population in this region also explains why political leaders threw acronyms like KASAB while campaigning in this region. Political observers said that maximum efforsts to polarise were witnessed during campaigning this phase.Besides Muslims, brahmins and thakurs, substantial number of non-yadav backward classes and non-jatav dalits were also crucial this phase.