BJP to focus UP poll campaigns on Mathura today

Lucknow: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be focusing its Uttar Pradesh poll campaigns on the temple town of Mathura on Thursday as Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, as well as UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, are covering the Western parts of the state, NDTV reported.

Amit Shah will visit Shri Banke Bihari Mandir in Vrindavan and meet supporters in Mathura. Earlier, Adityanath and UP deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya made comments regarding Mathura recently. In December, Adithyanth asked whether it was possible to leave behind Vrindavan- Mathura after Ayodhya and Kashi (Varanasi), implying the revival of Krishna Janmabhoomi temple. Later, Maurya tweeted that majestic temples in Ayodhya and Varanasi were going on, and Mathura would be next.

BJP is having downtime in western UP after the Union government passed the controversial Farm Laws but repealed them only after year-long deadly protests by farmers. Therefore, BJP's need a wild card here and could be the Mathura Krishna Janmabhoomi. The 100 seated western UP had elected 76 BJP candidates in the 2017 elections. The area has a majority of Jats, and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) had a big influence in the region. This time RLD, led by Jayant Chaudhary, is supporting Akhilesh Yadav's Samajwadi Party. In a meeting with Jat leaders, Amit Shah had said that the RLD chief had chosen the wrong front.

Mathura has five assembly seats, and all of them will go to the polls in the first phase itself, scheduled on February 10. The 403 seated UP assembly will go for elections in seven phases from February 10 to March 7. Counting will take place on March 10.