Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha elections 2024: Key constituencies and candidates in Phase 4

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and SP chief Akhilesh Yadav

Uttar Pradesh will on May 13 witness elections across 13 Lok Sabha seats during the fourth phase of Lok Sabha polls. The seats included in this phase are Shahjahanpur, Kheri, Dharuhara, Sitapur, Hardoi, Misrikh, Unnao, Farrukhabad, Etawah, Kannauj, Kanpur, Akbarpur, Bahraich (SC).

The state is of particular significance in the general parliamentary elections given that it sends 80 members to Lok Sabha.

Of particular interest in the fourth phase is the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat, where Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav has been fielded against BJP's Subrat Pathak and BSP's Imran Bin Zafar.

Uttar Pradesh Lok Sabha elections 2024: Key constituencies and candidates to watch out for

1. Kannauj: In Kannauj, Akhilesh Yadav replaced his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav as the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate for the Lok Sabha elections. He will be involved in a tough contest with BJP's Subrat Pathak, who won from the seat in the 2019 general election with a margin of over 12,000 votes against Dimple Yadav. The SP chief had won the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat first in 2000 and later represented it in 2004 as well as in 2009.

He vacated the seat after he became the Uttar Pradesh chief minister in 2012, and his wife Dimple Yadav won the by-election unopposed. In 2014 too, Dimple won from the seat but she lost it to BJP's Pathak in 2019.

2. Unnao: Unnao Lok Sabha constituency, which is positioned between Uttar Pradesh's capital Lucknow and the industrial city of Kanpur, holds great importance. BJP has fielded Sakshi Maharaj from the seat against SP's Annu Tandon and BSP's Ashok Kumar Pandey.

Sakshi Ji Maharaj, who currently serves as the MP for Unnao, had won from the constituency in the 2019 general election with a vote share of 56.87 per cent. The SP candidate, Arun Shankar Shukla, secured 3,02,551 votes with a vote share of 24.46 per cent. Sakshi Maharaj defeated Arun Shankar Shukla by a massive margin of 4,00,956 votes.

3. Shahjahanpur: The Samajwadi party changed its candidate for the Shahjahanpur Lok Sabha constituency, replacing Rajesh Kashyap with Jyotsana Gond. Arun Kumar Sagar has been fielded by the BJP while Daudram Verma is the BSP candidate from the seat.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Arun Kumar Sagar emerged victorious in the Shahjahanpur constituency. He secured 6,88,990 votes, while Amar Chandra Jauhar of the BSP secured 4,20,572 votes. Arun Kumar Sagar won by an impressive margin of 268,418 votes.

4. Kanpur: The industrial city of Kanpur will see a fight between BJP's Ramesh Awasthi, Congress' Alok Mishra and BSP's Kuldeep Bhadauriya.

Satyadev Pachauri, representing the BJP, emerged as the winner of the Kanpur constituency in 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He bagged 4,68,937 votes, while Sriprakash Jaiswal of Congress received 3,13,003 votes. Satyadev Pachauri achieved a landslide victory with a remarkable margin of 1,55,934 votes.