Lucknow:
The BJP’s focus today in the Uttar Pradesh campaign is Mathura, one of the three key temple towns after Ayodhya and Varanasi. Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath are covering western UP today, which has over 100 assembly seats and will see voting in three of the seven-phase elections.
The BJP is battling an “unpopularity” perception in western UP after a year-long protest by farmers against the now-withdrawn three farm laws. In the last assembly election in 2017, the BJP won 76 per cent seats in western UP.
This time, the math is not so simple. Jats are a deciding factor in almost all the seats in western Uttar Pradesh, a region where the Rashtriya Lok Dal, or RLD, enjoys influence among the community. The RLD, led by former Prime Minister Charan Singh’s grandson Jayant Chaudhary, has joined hands with Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party this time
