Saifai (Uttar Pradesh):
As Mulayam Singh Yadav's traditional stronghold votes in the fifth phase of the Uttar Pradesh elections, son Akhilesh Yadav has sought to clear all doubt on who the party's candidate for Chief Minister is. The father, he says, not the son.
"Netaji will be the next Chief Minister of UP, no ambiguity in that," says 38-year-old Akhilesh Yadav, who has been credited with scripting the SP's new-age election campaign this time. Netaji is what every SP member calls Mulayam Singh Yadav; many of those party leaders are also Yadav family members and they have gone all out to ensure that the fifth phase swings the SP way. The 13 districts that vote today include Firozabad, Kanshiram Nagar, Etah, Mainpuri, Etawah, Auraiya, Ramabainagar, Kanpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Hamirpur and Mahoba. This includes some parts of the Bundelkhand region.
Mulayam Singh Yadav calls himself the dhartiputra or son of this soil. He belongs to Saifai in Etawah, is an MP from Mainpuri and he began his political career from Jaswantnagar. "This is one place where Netaji and the party have worked effortlessly... results will be evident in Saifai," says Akhilesh Yadav. The father-son duo, making a resurgent attempt to recapture UP after losing it to Mayawati in 2007, have campaigned extensively in Mainpuri, Etah, Etawah and Kanpur Dehat, holding four or five public meetings in each district. And the electoral math is loaded in their favour here: 13.5 per cent of the region's voters are Yadavs.
Mulayam's brother Shivpal Yadav, who is also the Leader of Opposition in the UP Assembly, is contesting from Jaswantnagar. He fights two other Yadavs - Ajay Yadav the Congress candidate who is contesting from jail and Manish Yadav of the BSP, who too has a record of criminal cases against him.
Apart from the large presence of Yadavs, the region also has a substantial population of Lodhs. And among the 849 candidates fighting for 49 seats today is the BJP's Uma Bharti. She is a Lodh, but borrowed from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh to make her UP debut. Ms Bharti is one of the few star campaigners from any party this time who has put skin in the game. She is contesting elections from Charkhari. Another big Lodh leader, former chief minister, former BJP man, former Mulayam Singh partner, Kalyan Singh, is contesting from Etah.
Ms Bharti has campaigned in this region as has her party chief Nitin Gadkari and UP leader Rajnath Singh. Rahul Gandhi of the Congress and Chief Minister and BSP chief Mayawati campaigned here too. So would the Rahul magic work in the SP stronghold?
Akhilesh Yadav says, "It's a democracy, anyone can go anywhere... there's no message in that... I went to Allahabad, I went to Varanasi, what's the big deal in that? People have made this constituency what it is, they have made this an SP stronghold."
Uma Bharti kissed a calf in a Kodak moment this morning and had a message for CM Mayawati: "From Didi to Behenji, all I will say is retire and repent and try to undo what you have done." Ms Bharti said she was confident that the BJP would form government and that she backed BJP chief Gadkari on his statement that the BJP would not enter into a post-poll alliance with the BSP.