Rae Bareli, the Parliamentary constituency of Congress President Sonia Gandhi, comprising of six Assembly seats goes to poll on Thursday in the fourth phase of Uttar Pradesh elections.
However, this is the first time when Rae Bareli, which apart from Amethi, is the traditional pocket borough of the Gandhi family, would vote without Sonia hitting the campaign trail even once.
Instead, the Congress President has issued a letter addressed to Rae Bareli lamenting that she could not tour her constituency owing to unavoidable circumstances. In her letter, she appealed to people to vote for the party candidates given their long standing bond with the Gandhi family.
Meanwhile, canvassing in the 53 Assembly constituencies across 12 districts in the Bundelkhand and Eastern UP regions ended on Tuesday evening for the fourth phase polling.
On Tuesday, Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi accompanied by UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav had walked their respective roadshows to rally support for their candidates. Both events had attracted massive crowd.
In this phase, the poll bound districts comprise Allahabad, Kaushambi, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur and Rae Bareli, apart from seven district consisting Bundelkhand viz. Lalitpur, Jhansi, Jaluan, Hamirpur, Mahoba, Banda and Chitrakoot. A total of 680 candidates are in the fray.
Prominent contestants include UP Ministers Raghuraj Pratap Singh, Manoj Pandey, Shivkant Ojha, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari's daughter Aradhana Mishra, BSP turncoat and BJP leader Swami Prasad Maurya's son Utkarsh Maurya, Anugrah Narain Singh, Ujjawal Raman Singh etc.
Congress, which had forged pre-poll alliance with the ruling Samajwadi Party (SP), is contesting 25 of the 53 seats in this phase. The party is fighting 9 seats in the total 19 assembly seats in Bundelkhand, which had returned 4 Congress leaders to UP Vidhan Sabha in 2012 polls.
Besides, Congress is tangled in 'friendly fights' with SP in several constituencies, including Rae Bareli, Allahabad, Lalitpur and Fatehpur, where the latter has also fielded its official candidates.
The Assembly poll in UP are being conducted in seven phases slated on February 11, 15, 19, 23, 27, March 4 and 8 respectively. The elections had crossed halfway mark on February 19, when third phase had concluded, since elections to more than half of the total 403 state Assembly constituencies had been completed.
The counting of votes would be held on March 11 for all five poll bound states of UP, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
UP poll scenario is fluid and there is no clarity as to which party is leading. However, the election is shaping up as 'Modi versus all' with the opposition parties severally attacking Prime Minister and BJP mascot Narendra Modi in their election rallies.