Lok Sabha Election 2019 Uttar Pradesh: BJP rests hopes on 2014 laurels

The eight crucial seats that went to polls in Uttar Pradesh in the second phase of Lok Sabha elections on Thursday witnessed 62.30% turnout, nearly 0.5% more than 2014.

All these seats are very crucial for the BJP as it had won all of them in 2014 polls by landslide margins.

But owing to the Grand Alliance between three key regional parties – Mayawati's BSP, Akhilesh Yadav led SP and Ajit Singh run RLD – the BJP is facing a tough fight on all the seats. In a couple of seats like Fateh-pur Sikri and Nagina where Congress has fielded Raj Babbar and Omvati Devi, the fight has turned triangular.

In the rest of the seats, it is more or less a straight fight between the Gathbandhan and the BJP. The Congress has also not fielded a candidate in Amroha to help the ex-general secretary of Karnataka's JD(S) Danish Ali who is fighting on BSP ticket.

In the second phase, the BSP has fielded candidates on six of the eight constituencies while the SP and RLD are contesting in Hathras and Mathura, respectively, as per the terms of the alliance.

The BJP has tried very hard to make a push in this region through PM Modi's rallies. The last rally of PM Modi in Aligarh that witnessed a massive surge in the crowd gave some respite to the BJP which is witnessing heat from the caste arithmetic of the Gathbandhan.

Despite winning all 8 seats by huge margins in 2014, the BJP changed its sitting MPs candidates in Agra, Hathras and Fatehpur Sikri either on a performance basis to tackle Mahagathndhan's challenge. However, it retained its sitting MPs on five other seats.