59 seats vote today as UP polls enter round four

LUCKNOW: History and legacy are the signals flashing ahead of Round 4 of the UP elections, as the battle moves to the BJP and Congress citadels of Lucknow and Rae Bareli when nine districts of Awadh, Terai and

Bundelkhand

vote on Wednesday.

This phase will test the impact of the farmers’ unrest in

Lakhimpur Kheri

after the October violence and of government schemes and freebies such as free ration distributed among the poor during the pandemic. This cluster was a goldmine for BJP in 2017 as it won 50 of 59 seats. Samajwadi Party got four and Bahujan Samaj Party and Congress two each. BJP’s ally Apna Dal took one seat.

BJP won all four seats in Pilibhit, eight in Lakhimpur Kheri and four in Banda in 2017. It has also won eight of the nine seats in Lucknow, and five of six each in Fatehpur and Unnao. In Sitapur, BJP bagged seven of nine and three of six assembly segments in Rae Bareli — the Lok Sabha seat of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Lucknow has been a BJP fort since the start of the Ram temple movement, barring 2012 when SP won seven of the district’s nine seats.