Rajnath Singh, Rahul Gandhi & Smriti Irani in fray in high-profile battles of Awadh

LUCKNOW: The poll battle in UP will get more intense on Monday when 14 constituencies of the Awadh and Bundelkhand regions will vote in the fifth phase. The day will see five Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani, in the fray.
Like the previous phase, BJP had swept the region going to the polls in this phase, winning 13 out of 14 seats in 2019, when over 58% voters had exercised their franchise.Congress's Sonia Gandhi won from the family bastion, Rae Bareli. This time, her son Rahul Gandhi is contesting from here.

Over 2.68 crore voters are eligible to exercise their polling rights and 144 candidates are in the fray in this phase.
Spotlight is on twin constituencies of Rae Bareli and Amethi in Phase Five
A part from defence minister Rajnath Singh (Lucknow) and women and child development minister Smriti Irani (Amethi), other Union ministers contesting in this phase are MoS for for housing and urban affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj), MoS for consumer affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur) and MoS for MSME Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma (Jalaun). The BJP has repeated 12 of its 14 MPs in this round while replacing Briji Bhushan Sharan Singh in Kaiserganj and Upendra Rawat in Barabanki.
Both the candidates were mired in controversies. Brij Bhushan has been replaced by his younger son Karan Bhushan. Apart from him, two other political scions making their electoral debut in this phase are Pushpendra Saroj (Kaushambi) and Shreya Verma, both from SP. Puspendra, the son of former minister Indrajeet Saroj, is pitted against two-time MP Vidod Sonkar while Shreya is challenging four-time MP Kirti Vardhan Singh in Gonda. While Rajanth is eyeing a hat-trick from Lucknow, and his fourth straight term as a Lok Sabha MP, the political spotlight will be on the twin constituencies of Rae Bareli and Amethi. Both the seats are heading for a cliff-hanger as Irani faces Gandhi family's loyalist KL Sharma in Amethi and Rahul, UP minister who is also a former loyalist of his family -- Dinesh Pratap Singh. Dinesh, who switched over from Congress to BJP in 2018, also contested against Sonia in 2019 and had reduced her victory margin from 3 lakh in 2014 to 1.67 lakh.
While Sonia came once to campaign for his son, Rahul and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra held on to the fort while campaigning exhaustively in the two constituencies. Priyanka, in fact, camped in Rae Bareli from May 7 till the end of campaign on Saturday. Eyeing a 2019-lik upset when Smriti had defeated Rahul in Amethi, the saffron outfit has launched a campaign blitzkrieg in both the constituencies by senior leaders like home minister Amit Shah, BJP national president JP Nadda and CM Yogi Adityanath.
The BSP, which stayed away from the contest in 2019 while being in alliance with SP, has fielded Thakur Prasad Yadav, who could potentially nudge the Congress, which is contesting in alliance with Samajwadi Party. In Amethi, Congress brass, including party president Mallikarjun Kharge, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka too have thrown their entire weight behind Sharma. Here too, the BSP has fielded Nanhe Singh Chauhan, who comes from Nonia OBC community.
This phase also includes Faizabad (Ayodhya), inarguably the most potent Hindutva nerve centre which saw inauguration of Ram Temple earlier this year. BJP has been harping on the Ram Temple issue while cornering the opposition for turning down the invite for the Ram Temple consecration ceremony. The BJP has fielded party veteran Lallu Singh, who is aiming for the hat-trick.
He is expected to face a stiff challenge from SP’s Awdhesh Prasad, a Dalit. Prasad is a nine term MLA from Sohawal and Milkipur assembly seat in Ayodhya. The phase covers Bundelkhand's four constituencies of Jhansi, Jalaun, Banda and Hamirpur – all of them were won by BJP in 2019. The BJP has decided to repeat all its sitting MPs from the region. Voting will also take place for the assembly bypoll to Lucknow East assembly constituency.