BJP leader Maneka Gandhi during an interview.
Credit: PTI Photo
Lucknow: The fate of several high-profile candidates, including former Union minister Maneka Gandhi, will be decided on Saturday as 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh go to polls in the sixth phase of the Lok Sabha elections.
The bypoll for the Gaisari assembly seat in Balrampur will also be held on Saturday.
Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said 162 candidates, including 146 men and 16 women, are in the fray in the Lok Sabha elections while seven hopefuls are contesting in Gaisari.
Campaigning for the sixth phase of the elections ended at 6 pm on Thursday. Voting will begin at 7 am on Saturday and end at 6 pm.
The Lok Sabha seats going to the polls are Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Phulpur, Allahabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Shrawasti, Domariyaganj, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Lalganj, Azamgarh, Jaunpur, Machhlishahr and Bhadohi.
In Sultanpur, BJP candidate Gandhi is seeking her ninth entry into the Lok Sabha. The former Union minister is up against the Samajwadi Party's Ram Bhual Nishad and the Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) Uday Raj Verma.
From Allahabad, former West Bengal governor Kesari Nath Tripathi's son Neeraj Tripathi of the BJP will take on the Congress' Ujjawal Raman Singh.
In Azamgarh, incumbent MP Dinesh Lal Yadav Nirahua will be hoping to retain the seat for the BJP against the Samajwadi Party's Dharmendra Yadav.
Yadav had lost to Nirahua in the 2022 bypoll.
The seat was won by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav in the 2019 elections.
Jaunpur will witness former Maharashtra minister Kripashankar Singh of the BJP take on Samajwadi Party candidate Babu Singh Khushwaha and the incumbent MP Shyam Singh Yadav of the BSP.
In Bhadohi, Lalitesh Pati Tripathi of the Trinamool Congress is in the fray while the BJP's Ritesh Pandey is taking on former minister Lalji Verma of the Samajwadi Party in Ambedkar Nagar.
In Sant Kabir Nagar, the electoral battle pits BJP incumbent Praveen Nishad against the Samajwadi Party's Laxmikant alias Pappu Nishad.
At 80, Uttar Pradesh sends the highest number of MPs to the Lok Sabha. Voting has been held on 53 seats in the first five phases.
The remaining 13 seats will vote in the seventh phase on June 1.