AMN
Voting is to be held in eight seats on 19th April in Uttar Pradesh. This also includes the important seat of Saharanpur. BJP has made former MP Raghav Lakhanpal as its candidate on this seat.
On the other hand Congress has fielded Imran Masood. Majid Ali is in the fray from BSP. Apart from these, seven other candidates are also trying their luck on this seat.
Akashvani correspondent reports,There are five assembly constituencies under the Saharanpur Lok Sabha seat. This includes Behat, Saharanpur Nagar, Saharanpur Dehat, Deoband, and Rampur Maniharan.
In the 2012 assembly elections, out of these five seats, three were won by the BJP and two by SP.
The total number of voters on this seat is 18 lakh 44 thousand 410. These include 9 lakh 74 thousand 733 male voters, 8 lakh 69 thousand 583 female voters, and 94 transgender voters.
Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma from BJP, Imran Masood from India Alliance, and Majid Ali from BSP are in the fray on this seat. Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma and Imran Masood are competing for the third consecutive time.
Congress candidate Imran Masood had earlier contested the Lok Sabha elections from here in 2014 on a Congress ticket.
In that election, Raghav Lakhanpal of BJP defeated him by 68 thousand votes. In 2019, BSP’s Haji Fazlur Rehman defeated Raghav Lakhanpal by about 20 thousand votes, but this time BSP has filded Majid Ali instead of Fazlur Rehman.
Majid Ali is currently a district panchayat member from Deoband area. Majid Ali had also contested the assembly elections in 2017 on a BSP ticket.
But he lost to the BJP’s Kunwar Brijesh Singh. Ahead of the polling date, the election campaigning by all political parties has gained momentum.