Election campaigning in 13 Lok Sabha constituencies going to polls in the fourth phase of elections on May 13 ended on Saturday evening, with leaders of various political parties making a last-minute appeal to voters to vote for their respective party candidates.  Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath addressed election rallies in Unnao, Kannauj and Kanpur on Saturday, while the Samajwadi Party held a public outreach programme in Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency from where party chief Akhilesh Yadav is contesting the polls..  Polling for the by-election to Dadraul assembly constituency in Shahjahanpur district will also be held along with the polls in 13 Lok Sabha seats on May 13. The Lok Sabha constituencies going to polls in the fourth phase include Shahjahanpur (SC), Kheri, Dhaurahra, Sitapur, Hardoi (SC), Misrikh (SC), Unnao, Farrukhabad, Etawah (SC), Kannauj, Kanpur, Akbarpur and Bahraich (SC), spread in 13 districts. A total of 130 candidates are in the poll fray in this phase. Of particular interest in the fourth phase polls is the Kannauj Lok Sabha constituency from where SP chief and leader of opposition in UP assembly Akhilesh Yadav is seeking election to Lok Sabha and is facing challenge from sitting Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subrat Pathak and Bahujan Samaj Partys Imran Bin Zafar. The prestige of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Mishra Teni, who is eyeing a hat-trick from Kheri, is also at stake in the fourth phase of polling. The key constituencies going to polls in the fourth phase are Kannauj where Akhilesh Yadav replaced his nephew Tej Pratap Yadav as the SP candidate. He will be involved in a tough contest with BJPs Subrat Pathak, who won from the seat in the 2019 general election with a margin of over 12,000 votes, defeating Dimple Yadav. The SP chief had won the Kannauj Lok Sabha seat first in 2000 and later in 2004 as well as in 2009. He had vacated the seat after he became the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh in 2012, and his wife Dimple Yadav won the by-election unopposed. In 2014 too, Dimple had won from Kannauj but she lost the seat to BJPs Pathak in 2019. Unnao Lok Sabha constituency, positioned between capital Lucknow and the industrial city of Kanpur, holds great importance. The BJP has fielded Sakshi Maharaj from this constituency against SPs Annu Tandon and BSPs Ashok Kumar Pandey. Sakshi Maharaj, the sitting BJP MP from Unnao, had won from this constituency in the 2019 general election with a vote share of 56.87 per cent. SP candidate, Arun Shankar Shukla had secured 3,02,551 votes with a vote share of 24.46 per cent. Sakshi Maharaj had defeated Arun Shankar Shukla by a massive margin of 4,00,956 votes. In Shahjahanpur Lok Sabha constituency, the SP party changed its candidate, replacing Rajesh Kashyap with Jyotsana Gond. Arun Kumar Sagar has been fielded by the BJP while Daudram Verma is the BSP candidate from this constituency. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Arun Kumar Sagar had emerged victorious from the Shahjahanpur constituency. He secured 6,88,990 votes, while Amar Chandra Jauhar of the BSP secured 4,20,572 votes. Sagar won by an impressive margin of 2,68,418 votes. The industrial city of Kanpur will see a fight between BJPs Ramesh Awasthi, Congress candidate Alok Mishra and BSP nominee Kuldeep Bhadauriya. Satyadev Pachauri, the sitting BJP MP from Kanpur, won in 2019 Lok Sabha elections by polling over 4.68 lakh votes while Sriprakash Jaiswal of Congress polled over 3.13 lakh votes. Satyadev Pachauri had achieved a landslide victory with a remarkable margin of 1,55,934 votes. Of the 13 parliamentary constituencies going to polls in the fourth phase, the BJP has reposed its faith on 11 sitting MPs by giving them tickets, while it has fielded new candidates Ramesh Awasthi from Kanpur and Anand Kumar from the Bahraich (SC) constituencies.  In the INDIA bloc, the SP has fielded candidates from 11 Lok Sabha seats in this phase, while on two seats — Kanpur (Alok Misra) and Sitapur (Rakesh Rathor) — candidates of the Congress are in the fray. As many as four BJP candidates  — Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni (Kheri), Rekha Verma (Dhaurahra), Mukesh Rajput (Farrukhabad) and Devendra Singh alias Bhole (Akbarpur) — are eyeing a hat-trick of wins, while Rajesh Verma is eyeing a fifth term from Sitapur. Ashok Kumar Rawat and Ram Shankar Katheria are eyeing a fourth term from Misrikh (SC) and Etawah (SC) respectively. Sitting MP from Hardoi (SC) Jai Prakash and incumbent from Unnao Sakshi Maharaj are eyeing a sixth term in the Lok Sabha Meanwhile UPs Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said that returning officers in all 13 Lok Sabha seats had been directed to ensure that polling parties were despatched to respective polling stations by Sunday evening. He said the returning officers had been directed to provide all necessary facilities to the polling staff and the voters in polling stations and polling booths. He said the polling staff had been provided medical kits for prevention from heat stroke. Over 2.46 crore voters will be eligible to exercise their voting rights in the fourth phase of the Lok Sabha polls in the state.

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