UP Assembly Elections: Heavyweights in Sangam slugfest; 249 candidates trying to win 12 seats

ALLAHABAD: Heritage-soaked Sangam city, where rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati come together, is also where political parties swarm for a spot in the sun in the city’s 12 assembly constituencies.

Allahabad, with the highest number of seats in any single district in the state, has given the country the maximum number of PMs. This assembly election, there are a whopping 249 candidates slugging it out to win 12 seats.

Stakes are high. In all, 261 nominations were filed. Phulpur has the highest number of contesting candidates , 27, while the lowest is 14 from Handia. Most seats have heavyweights, ministers and ministers’ kin from each of the main political parties — BSP, SP, Congress and BJP — battling it out.

Allahabad South, for instance, has Mayawati’s cabinet minister Nandgopal Gupta Nandi taking on former UP speaker and BJP leader Keshari Nath Tripathi. Congress’s Jitendra Nath Singh, the Allahabad mayor, and Lok Manch’s Vijay Gupta make up the four-way battle .

In Allahabad West, the contest is three-way . Jailed mafia don, Apna Dal candidate Atiq Ahmed, faces BSP’s MLA Puja Pal, widow of BSP’s Raju Pal. Ahmed is an accused in Pal’s murder in 2005. Karchana is also actionpacked .

SP’s candidate, former UP minister Ujjawal Raman Singh, takes on a former deputy mayor, BJP’s Anamika Chaudhary. Ujjawal is Allahabad MP Reoti Raman Singh’s son. Bhagwant Pandey of Congress is another key player.

The battle for Koraon (SC) is dominated by two-time MLA and BSP candidate Rajbali Jaisal. In Phaphamau, the youngest constituency, Congress’s Shekhar Bahuguna, brother of the party’s state chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi, is pitched against Guru Prasad Maurya, considered BSP’s thinktank.

In Kaushambi district, earlier a part of Allahabad, all three seats were bagged by BSP in 2007. The fight is between SP and BSP, with Congress and BJP reportedly reduced to bystanders.