- By Aalok Sensharma
- Wed, 09 Feb 2022 09:40 AM (IST)
- Source:JND
Lucknow | Jagran Politics Desk: The seven-phased Uttar Pradesh assembly elections is all set to begin from Thursday. As a result, political parties are leaving no stone unturned to lure voters in Uttar Pradesh, which as per political experts will be the semi-final ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Amid this, senior Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday held an aggressive door-to-door campaign in western Uttar Pradesh's Hastinapur to gather support for the party's candidate - Archana Gautam - from this high-profile seat.
The Hastinapur assembly constituency, which falls in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut district, came into existence in 1957. Since then, it has been one of the key seats in Uttar Pradesh and results have shown that whichever political party won this constituency has always formed the government in the state.
Beginning from 1957, Congress won this seat with help from its candidate Bishambhar Singh and formed the government in Uttar Pradesh. Singh had defeated the Communist Party of India's (CPI) Pritam Singh.
In the elections of 1962 and 1967, Congress once again won the Hastinapur seat and formed the government. However, in 1969, the grand old party lost the seat to Bharatiya Kranti Dal's (BKD) Asha Ram Indu. The BKD was formed by Chaudhary Charan Singh, who became Uttar Pradesh's Chief Minister in 1969 after winning the elections.
In 1974, Congress once again managed to win Hastinapur, thanks to Revti Raman Maurya, and later formed the government in Uttar Pradesh under Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna.
In 1977, Maurya won Hastinapur again but as Janata Party (JP) candidate. As a result, JP leader Ram Naresh Yadav became the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. In 1980, Jhaggar Singh from Congress (I) won the election from the seat and Vishwanath Pratap Singh became Chief Minister.
In 1985, Harsharan Singh from Congress won the seat and ND Tiwari again became the Chief Minister. In 1989, Mulayam Singh Yadav became the chief minister and in the same year, Jhaggad Singh won the Hastinapur seat as a Janata Dal (Socialist) candidate.
However, assembly elections did not take place in Hastinapur in the 11th and 12th legislative assemblies.
In 1996, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate Atul Khatik won Hastinapur and the party formed the government in Uttar Pradesh. In 2002, Samajwadi's Prabhu Dayal Balmiki won from this seat after which Mayawati held the Chief Minister's post for over a year and then Mulayam Singh Yadav gained power for the rest of the period.
In 2007, Yogesh Verma from BSP won the seat and Mayawati formed the government in the state. In 2012 polls, Balmiki again emerged victorious by a narrow margin of 6,641 votes over BSP candidate Yogesh Verma. Akhilesh Yadav became the state's chief minister.
In 2017, BJP's Dinesh Khatik defeated then BSP Yogesh Verma and Yogi Adityanath became Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister. However, both the candidates are in the fray this time although Verma is contesting as an SP-RLD candidate. Congress has fielded Archana Gautam as its candidate on this seat and Sanjeev Jatav is fielded by BSP.
It will be interesting to see who will win the Hastinapur seat this year. This time, the BJP has reposed the faith in Dinesh Khatik while the Congress and SP have fielded Archana Gautam and Yogesh Verma. The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), on the other hand, has fielded Vinod Jatav in Hastinapur.
(With inputs from ANI)