New Delhi, May 15

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has an advantage in the seventh phase of the Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday as the caste and community arithmetic of the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) may not work in 9 out of 13 seats in the final round.

The BJP and ally had swept all these 13 eastern Uttar Pradesh seats in 2014. This year also, all eyes are on Varanasi from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking re-election.

The spotlight is also on Gorakhpur, a seat BJP is keen to wrest from the Samajwadi Party (SP) after the setback in bypoll when Hindutva mascot Yogi Adityanath's stronghold fell to MGB, which made its experimental debut as an anti-BJP front in Uttar Pradesh.

Stakes are also high for the Congress as former Minister in Manmohan Singh's government R.P.N. Singh is giving a strong fight in Kushi Nagar on the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border and journalist-turned-politician Supriya Shrinate is contesting from Maharajganj.

If votes polled by MGB constituents SP and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in 2014 are taken into account, the combined vote share of its candidates exceeds that of the winning BJP contestant in only four of these 13 seats.

The seats where caste and community equation favours MGB are Ghosi, Balia, Ghazipur and Chandauli. In the rest of the seats, the MGB falls short of the BJP by substantial margins. But there are some riders as well.

The combined vote share of the SP and BSP in Gorakhpur in 2014, when Yogi Adityanath won the seat by polling 5,39,127 votes, was much less than that of the BJP.

Adityanath had defeated Rajmati Nishad of SP, who got 2,26,344 votes and BSP's Ram Bhual Nishad (1,76,412).

Yet the BJP lost the bypolls to Samajwadi Party's Praveen Nishad and the Yogi bastion was breached for the first time.

Praveen Nishad, however, is now with the BJP contesting from the Sant Kabir Nagar seat while Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan is carrying the BJP flag in Gorakhpur.

Also on test in this round is BJP's ally and Union Minister Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal from Mirzapur. She is up against Lalitesh Tripathi of the UPA and MGB candidate Rajendra S. Vind.

Another Union Minister and senior BJP leader Manoj Sinha, who almost missed the bus to become Chief Minister, is seeking re-election from Ghazipur while state party chief Mahendra Nath Pandey is contesting from Chandauli.

The BJP is confident that the momentum is with Prime Minister Narendra Modi which will unsettle all the caste and community equations.

Maharajganj (2014)

Winner: Pankaj -- BJP -- 4,71,542

Akhilesh -- SP -- 2,13,974

Kashi Nath Shukla -- BSP -- 2,31,084

SP+BSP= 4,45,058

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Pankaj Choudhary -- BJP

Supriya Shrinate -- UPA

Akhilesh Singh -- MGB

Tanushree Tripathi -- PDA

Gorakhpur (2014)

Winner: Adityanath -- BJP -- 5,39,127

Rajmati Nishad -- SP -- 2,26,344

Ram Bhual Nishad -- BSP -- 1,76,412

SP+BSP= 1,76,412

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Ravi Kishan -- BJP

Madhusudan Tripathi -- UPA

Rambhual Nishad -- MGB

Kushi Nagar (2014)

Winner: Rajesh Pandey aka 'Guddu' -- BJP -- 3,70,051

Kunwar Ratanjit Pratap Narain Singh -- INC -- 2,84,511

Radhe Shyam Singh -- SP -- 1,11,256

Dr. Sangam Mishra -- BSP -- 1,32,881

SP+BSP= 2,44,137

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Vijay Dubey -- BJP

R.P.N Singh -- UPA

Nathuni Prasad Kushwaha -- MGB

Deoria (2014)

Winner: Kalraj Mishra -- BJP -- 4,96,500

Niyaz Ahmad -- BSP -- 2,31,114

Baleshwar Yadav -- SP -- 1,50,852

SP+BSP= 3,81,966

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Ramapati Ram Tripathi -- BJP

Niaz Ahmed -- UPA

Vinod Kumar Jaiswal -- MGB

Bansgaon (2014)

Winner: Kamlesh Paswan -- BJP -- 4,17,959

Gorakh Prasad Paswan -- SP -- 1,33,675

Sadal Prasad -- BSP -- 2,28,443

SP+BSP= 3,62,118

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Kamlesh Paswan -- BJP

Kush Saurabh -- UPA

Sadal Prasad -- MGB

Surendra Prasad Bharti -- PDA

Ghosi (2014)

Winner: Hari Narayan Rajbhar -- BJP -- 3,79,797

Dara Singh Chauhan -- BSP -- 2,33,782

Rajeev Kr. Rai -- SP -- 1,65,887

SP+BSP= 3,99,669

Adv: MGB

Contestants in 2019

Hari Narayan Rajbhar -- BJP

Bal Krishna Chauhan -- UPA

Atul Rai -- MGB

Salempur (2014)

Winner: Ravindra Kushwaha -- BJP -- 3,92,213

Ravi Shankar Singh 'Pappu' -- BSP-- 1,59,871

Haribansh Sahai Kushwaha -- 1,59,788

SP+BSP= 3,19,559

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Ravindra Kushwaha -- BJP

Rajesh Mishra -- UPA

B.S. Kushwaha -- MGB

Dr. Ajimullah Ansari -- PDA

Balia (2014)

Winner: Bharat Singh -- BJP -- 3,59,758

Virendra Kumar Pathak -- BSP -- 1,41,684

Neeraj Shekhar -- SP -- 2,20,324

SP+BSP= 3,62,008

Adv: MGB

Contestants in 2019

Virendra Singh Mast -- BJP

Sanatan Pandey -- MGB

Ghazipur (2014)

Winner: Manoj Sinha -- BJP -- 3,06,929

Kailash Nath Singh Yadav -- BSP -- 2,41,845

Smt Shivkanya Kushwaha -- SP -- 2,74,477

SP+BSP= 5,16,322

Adv: MGB

Contestants in 2019

Manoj Sinha -- BJP

Ajit Pratap Kushwaha -- UPA

Afzal Ansari --MGB

Chaundauli (2014)

Winner: Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey -- BJP -- 4,14,135

Anil Kumar Maurya -- BSP -- 2,57,379

Ramkishun -- SP -- 2,04,145

SP+BSP= 4,61,524

Adv: MGB

Contestants in 2019

Mahendra Nath Pandy -- BJP

Shiv Kanya Kushwaha -- UPA

Sanjay Chauhan -- MGB

Varanasi (2014)

Winner: Narenda Modi -- BJP -- 5,81,022

Arvind Kejriwal -- AAP -- 2,09,238

Ajay Rai -- Congress -- 75,614

Kailash Chaurasiya -- SP -- 45,291

Vijay Prakash Jaiswal -- BSP -- 60,579

SP+BSP= 1,05,870

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Narendra Modi -- BJP

Ajay Rai -- UPA

Shalini Yadav -- MGB

Mirzapur (2014)

Winner: Anupriya Singh Patel -- Apna Dal -- 4,36,536

Samudra Bind -- BSP -- 2,17,457

Surendra Singh Patel -- SP -- 1,08,859

Lalitesh Pati Tripathi -- Congress -- 1,52,666

SP+BSP= 3,26,316

Adv: NDA

Contestants in 2019

Anupriya Patel -- NDA

Lalitesh Tripathi -- UPA

Rajendra S. Vind -- MGB

Robertsganj (2014)

Winner: Chhotelal -- BJP -- 3,78,211

Pakaudi Lal Kol -- SP -- 1,35,966

Sharada Prasad -- BSP -- 1,87,725

SP+BSP= 3,23,691

Adv: BJP

Contestants in 2019

Pakaudi Lal -- BJP

Bhagwati Prasad Choudhary -- UPA

Bhai Lal Kaul -- MGB

Triveni Prasad Kharwar -- PDA

BJP has numbers to crack MGB's caste code in UP's final round