Lucknow: Third Phase of Uttar Pradesh assembly elections will vote on Sunday and the Punjab State Assembly elections also going to vote today. The west, central and southern parts of Uttar Pradesh is going to poll today. In 2017, the BJP won 49 of these 59 seats while the Samajwadi Party won nine. The Congress won one seat and Mayawati’s Bahujan Samajwadi Party, none.

All eyes are on the Karhal seat in the Yadav family stronghold Mainpuri from where Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is contesting his first state elections. The BJP has fielded Union Minister SP Singh Baghel against him. The SP has lost this seat just once since the party’s inception in 1992. The other prominent candidates are the SP chief’s uncle Shivpal Singh Yadav (Jaswantnagar), BJP’s Satish Mahana (Maharajpur in Kanpur), Ramveer Upadhayay (Sadabad in Hathras), Asim Arun (Kannauj Sadar) and Congress’ Louise Khurshid (Farrukhabad Sadar). Louise Khurshid is the wife of senior Congress leader and former Union Minister Salman Khurshid.

Punjab will vote in a single phase to elect 117 members to the state assembly. The last leg of campaigning in the state saw a desperate shift in agenda leaning towards religious identity and separatism. As Congress tries to hold on to Punjab, a multi-cornered contest will see the BJP contesting without its long-time ally Akali Dal. Captain Amarinder Singh, who was unceremoniously removed as Chief Minister last year, has floated his own party, Punjab Lok Congress, and has joined hands with the BJP.

The big challenger here is the Aam Aadmi Party in Punjab elections, AAP promised the voters with a Delhi-like manifesto focusing on health, education, free electricity and water. This time, it has also named a Chief Ministerial candidate – its only MP from Punjab, Bhaghwant  Mann – an omission that is said to have cost it heavily in 2017.