INDI Alliance Vs BJP: Campaign In Uttar Pradesh Till Now

16 of Uttar Pradesh's 80 Lok Sabha seats have already polled in the first two phases of the elections. However, the INDI Alliance's campaign is much milder when compared to its main rival BJP.

Congress is contesting 17 seats in Uttar Pradesh, of which five have already polled. However, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra held only one public gathering each till now.

While Priyanka campaigned for Congress' Saharanpur candidate and 'boti-boti' infamy Imran Masood through a roadshow, Rahul held a joint rally with Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav in Amroha.

Rahul's campaign was last week, just a day later of the first phase of polling, where he only campaigned for a Congress candidate, Danish Ali, who is contesting from Amroha, where he was elected on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) symbol in 2019.

Earlier, Rahul held a joint press conference with Akhilesh Yadav in Ghaziabad, which too voted in the second phase. Here Congress candidate is Dolly Sharma, while BJP has fielded incumbent Ghaziabad MLA Atul Garg.

Thus, no big Congress leader campaigned for any SP candidate, signaling that the INDI Alliance is not closely bound. Moreover, even veteran SP leaders are also not campaigning for SP.

While Azam Khan is in jail, he is known to have supported the boycott call of the Rampur SP cadre after his choice did not get a ticket. Similarly, Shivpal Yadav is campaigning only for his son Aditya in Budaun.

Now contrast this to the BJP campaign where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has addressed seven public meetings and held two roadshows including the last one in Bareilly.

UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has touched some constituencies twice and thrice. He held prabudh sammelans in almost every constituency that has polled till now.

Other than addressing public meetings in Mathura, Aligarh, Saharanpur, Nagina, Rampur, Hapur, Muzaffarnagar, Kairana, Moradabad, Pilibhit, and Gautam Budhha Nagar, he also campaigned for Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) candidates in Baghpat and Bijnor.

Nagina, Baghpat and Saharanpur even had more than two rallies, Indian Express reported. This takes the total count of his public meetings to 38, contrary to Akhilesh's just eight in the past two weeks.

Akhilesh even did not cover every constituency where SP is contesting. Other than Amroha's joint rally, he campaigned in Bijnor, Meerut, Aligarh, Muzaffarnagar, Moradabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar and Etah.

Now in the third phase of elections, polling will be held on three of the SP's bastions. Akhilesh's wife Dimple Yadav is contesting from Mainpuri and his cousins Akshay and Aditya from Firozabad and Badaun, respectively.

In the fourth phase, Akhilesh himself is contesting from Kannauj. Hence, it is expected that the party will now focus its campaigning only on those seats where Yadav family members are contesting.

Meanwhile, Congress workers are still hopeful of Rahul and Priyanka to intensify their campaigning in UP in the upcoming phases. Especially, after Wayanad, from where Rahul is contesting, has voted in second phase.

The Congress cadre is also expecting Rahul and Priyanka to contest from Amethi and Rae Bareli respectively, so that the party's morale gets boosted for the next few phases.