Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad has announced that he will contest the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh from Gorakhpur. He will be in a direct fight with the current chief minister and senior leader of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Yogi Adityanath.
On January 18, Azad who is a staunch BJP critic said his political outfit – Azad Samaj Party – is open to stitching an alliance with others and maintained that his fight has always been with the ruling party and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Gorakhpur is the home turf of Adityanath and it is one of the oldest BJP bastions.
On January 16, the BJP had announced that Adityanath will fight the upcoming election from Gorakhpur urban seat.
Gorakhpur is in eastern Uttar Pradesh that accounts for 160 of the total 403 assembly seats. The BJP’s Radha Mohan Das Agarwal is representing the seat at present, having won it four times. The constituency has been a BJP stronghold for decades, especially since the Ram temple movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The seven-phases polling for the UP election will commence from February 10 and will continue till March 7. The Gorakhpur urban seat will go to vote in the sixth phase, on March 3. The votes will be counted on March 10.
