The current ruling party in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is touted to win the upcoming 2022 UP Legislative Assembly elections again and achieve majority number of seats comfortably. BJP is projected to win 240-250 out of the total 403 seats in the UP Legislative Assembly according to a opinion poll conducted by Times Now-Polstrat in November. According to the opinion polls, the Samajwadi Party & its allies will be second to the NDA alliance led by BJP, while Bahujan Samajwadi Party is slated to lose a fair chunk of its votes to the NDA & SP.
The Indian National Congress (INC), led by Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is expected to win a sparse 5-10 seats which isn’t any improvement from their situation in the 2017 UP Legislative Assembly Elections. If these and majority of the opinion polls turn out to be true, current UP CM Yogi Adityanath will become the first UP CM to be in power for 2 consecutive terms.
Sponsored LinksIn their efforts to gain some advantage back in the upcoming UP elections 2022, INC leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra declared that the party would allot 40% of their election tickets to women candidates and the party has been campaigning heavily with women being their primary target audience. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has made a lot of huge promises to the women of UP like – free smartphones & 2-wheelers for college going girls, 3 LPG-cylinders free for women, a ₹10,000 honorarium every month to Anganwadi & ASHA workers, additional old-age widow pension of ₹1,000 per month and free travel for women in government buses.
Congress is targeting the women voters to get a healthy share of votes, the party is soon going to launch a 100-day PR campaign to garner support of these women voters leading with the slogan – “Ladki hoon, lad sakti hoon” to empower women and fight the crimes against women. The social media team of Congress is targeting women as historically there have been slightly higher percentage of women voters in UP than men. INC is targeting 100 seat victories and their social media/PR teams will contact women voters in these districts more than 10 times each by the time the elections roll around.
Sponsored LinksMeanwhile, former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav, leader of the SP has promised the farmers of the state that they will be allowed to set up Mandis along the Purvanchal Expressway should his government be voted to power in the forthcoming elections. The ex-CM said the poorer societies of Purvanchal will be greatly helped by this move and the expressway will allow his party to significantly boost the economy of the towns and villages around it.
The Purvanchal Expressway is 341km long and starts at Chaudsarai village in Lucknow district on NH-731, and ends at Hydaria village on NH-31. The expressway also has a 3.2km long airstrip road stretch to facilitate emergency landings & take-off of Indian Air Force planes in cases of emergency. Currently, the expressway has 6-lanes but with the capacity to be widened to 8-lanes if required in the future. The project of the Purvanchal Expressway cost approximately ₹22,500 crores and was developed to aid economic growth of eastern UP. The expressway connects the districts of Lucknow, Amethi, Barabanki, Prayagraj, Ambedkar Nagar, Ghazipur, Mau, Azamgarh & Sultanpur.
Sponsored LinksThe Purvanchal Expressway is already a major political factor in the upcoming UP Legislative Elections 2022. As the elections approach, the parties contesting the election are expected to spend upwards of ₹8,000 crores in total for advertising & campaigning efforts. TV-advertising will be the main avenue where the money will be spent and nearly 45% of it will be spent on ads via news media – TV, newspapers, radio etc.