Amit Shah offers prayers at Bankey Bihari Temple in Mathura

|HT|

Union home minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Amit Shah on Thursday offered prayers at the Bankey Bihari Temple in Mathura district ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh. During the visit, Shah was accompanied by energy minister Sri Kant Sharma, who is also a BJP candidate from Mathura. The sacred city, where Lord Krishna is said to have been born, will go to the polls on February 10 in the first phase of the assembly election.

Later in the day, Shah is scheduled to address a voters-meet at college premises in Mathura. Other senior leaders including Arjun Meghwal and Laxmi Narain Chaudhary were also present during the visit.

Uttar Pradesh is slated to hold assembly elections in February-March in seven phases. According to the schedule announced by the Election Commission, the counting of votes will be held on March 10.

In the past, Congress candidate Pradeep Mathur had won four times from Mathura in 1985, 2002, 2007 and 2012. He lost the constituency in the 2017 assembly polls to BJP's Sri Kant Sharma by a margin of over one lakh. Mathura, along with Ayodhya and Kashi, is among the three most prominent religious cities in Uttar Pradesh.

After concluding the Mathura visit, Shah will move to Dadri and Noida today for campaigning. According to the official schedule, Shah will engage in house-to-house contact campaign in Gautam Buddha Nagar's Dadri area at 3.15 pm.

The home minister's day-long engagement will end with his involvement in effective voter communication scheduled at 4.15pm in Greater Noida.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)