LS Election: PM Modi to address rallies in UP on May 16-17

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be addressing back-to-back rallies in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday and Friday, said the party spokesman.

He will be holding rallies in Jaunpur and Azamgarh on Thursday. While the Jaunpur rally will also cover Machhlishahr parliamentary seat, the one in Azamgarh will aim to consolidate the party's position in both Azamgarh and Lalganj seats.

Interestingly, except for Machhlishahr, the BJP lost the other three seats -- Azamgarh, Lalganj and Jaunpur -- to the SP-BSP combine in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

The BJP managed to win Machhlishahr by a wafer-thin margin of 181 votes, with party candidate Bholanath Saroj defeating BSP candidate Tribhuwan Ram, a former PWD chief engineer.

Saroj is back in the fray and is up against SP's Priya Saroj, daughter of SP veteran and former MP Tufani Saroj. The neighbouring constituency of Jaunpur was won by BSP's Shyam Singh Yadav who defeated BJP's Krishna Pratap Singh by a margin of around 81,000 votes.

The PM's rally has been convened in the Jaunpur Sadar Assembly segment of Jaunpur. The constituency has recently been in the news after BSP decided to field mafia-turned-politician Dhananjay Singh's wife Srikala from the constituency.

BSP president Mayawati later cancelled Srikala's candidature and fielded Shyam Singh Yadav. Yadav will be up against BJP's Kripa Shanker Singh, a former Congress leader and Maharashtra home minister.

The SP has fielded former BSP leader and minister Babu Singh Kushwaha. Likewise, Azamgarh was won by SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, however, vacated the seat to contest the 2022 UP Assembly polls from his pocket borough of Karhal in Mainpuri.

In the subsequent by-elections, BJP's Dinesh Lal Nirahua defeated SP's Dharmendra Yadav. Nirahua and Dharmendra Yadav will be locking horns once again, in what could potentially be a highly watched contest in this Yadav and Muslim-dominated constituency.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally in Azamgarh has been convened in the Nizamabad Assembly segment which comes under Lalganj from where BSP's Sangeeta Azad won in 2019.

Azad, however, switched over to BJP earlier this year but could not manage to get a ticket to contest. The BJP has fielded Neelam Sonkar, who would be up against SP's Daroga Saroj, a former MP from Lalganj.

On May 17, the Prime Minister is also scheduled to address rallies in Barabanki and Mohanlalganj to consolidate the party's position in the Avadh region.

Meanwhile, official sources said that the Prime Minister was likely to make a night halt in Lucknow on Thursday. Preparations in this regard are already underway.