Delimitation in Uttar Pradesh has had a piquant impact and for the first time, perhaps, sitting MLAs are being pitted against sitting MLAs from the same constituency.
More than two dozen sitting MLAs are coming face to face with each other because the complexion of their parent constituency has either been changed or the constituency has been simply scrapped.
For instance, in the Lucknow West seat, two sitting legislators locked in combat are Suresh Srivastava of BJP and Shyam Kishore Shukla of Congress. Shyam Kishore Shukla had won the seat in a by-election in 2009 while Suresh Srivastava had won from Lucknow Central in 2007. Srivastava has been shifted to the Lucknow west seat after a major chunk of his original constituency came here.
In Barabanki, expelled BSP MLA Farid Mehfooz Kidwai, now in Samajwadi Party, will be challenging BSP’s Meeta Gautam from the newly carved Kursi assembly seat. Gautam had won from Fatehpur and Kidwai had won from Masauli in the 2007 polls and both their seats have been scrapped in delimitation.
Similarly SP MLA Arvind Singh Gope is pitted against BSP MLA Amresh Shukla in the Ramnagar seat. Gope has been shifted here after his Haidergarh seat became a reserved constituency.
In Kanpur, SP MLA Irfan Solanki is contesting from Sisamau seat against Congress MLA Sanjeev Daryabadi (who had earlier won from Kanpur city seat) while in the adjoining and newly carved Maharjpur seat, SP MLA Aruna Tomar is pitted against BJP MLA Satish Mahana.
In Allahabad (North), Congress MLA Anugrah Narain is contesting against BJP MLA Udaibhan Kawariya who had earlier won from Bara but has changed constituency after delimitation.
Similar is the case in Mirzapur where sacked BSP minister Ranganath Misra is contesting against SP MLA Kailash Chaurasia.
In Saharanpur, Imran Masood, who won the previous elections as an independent from Nakud seat, is pitted against BSP minister Dharam Singh Saini.
In Azamgarh, SP MLA Durga Yadav and Sarvesh Kumar Singh, also a SP MLA who later defected to BSP, are facing each other while SP MLA Shailendra Singh Lalai and BSP minister Dharamraj Nishad will be contesting against each other on the Shahganj seat in Jaunpur.