UP gears up for round one of Modi-Rahul wrangling

The Congress yuvraj will address two rallies in western Uttar Pradesh in the Muslim-dominated constituencies of Rampur and Aligarh on 9 October. From the date and schedule of the rally, it’s clear that Congress is eyeing minority vote bank in the aftermath of Muzaffarnagar riots. Also, Congress had performed well in the last general election on these two seats and lost marginally to Jaya Prada of SP in Rampur and Raj Kumari Chauhan of BSP in Aligarh. 

BJP’s prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi will start his ‘Mission UP’ with a rally in Kanpur on 19 October, a few days after Dussehra and Id-ul-Zoha. The Gujarat chief minister will try his best to demolish the fort of coal minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, who is a third term MP of Congress from Kanpur. After rally in Kanpur, Modi will address a rally in Bahraich on 25 October, again a bastion of Congress. The constituency is represented by Kamal Kishore of the Congress.

From there, the BJP will take Modi to enthuse another Congress seat Jhansi on 30 October. Jhansi is held by Pradeep Jain of Congress who is currently minister of state for rural development.

While on the other hand, the Gandhi scion on 22 October will address two rallies in Hamirpur and Salempur in Deoria district. Congress leaders from the state were demanding that Rahul Gandhi should give more time to UP and that too outside Amethi and Rae Bareli.

In the last general elections, Congress won 22 seats, just one seat less than the ruling SP. Congress will be under pressure to maintain the same figure, if not increase it. BJP under Modi and his protégé Amit Shah is looking to increase the tally to 45.