Katra

Overview & 2022 Context

Katra, Assembly Constituency number 131 in Shahjahanpur district, produced a photo-finish in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls. Veer Vikram Singh of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) finished first with 77,800 votes (39.89%), defeating Rajesh Yadav (SP), who polled 77,443 (39.71%). The victory margin was 357 votes. Of 338,784 electors, 195,016 votes were polled and turnout stood at 57.56%.

The 2022 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election was a bipolar contest between the BJP-led NDA and the Samajwadi Party–led front. Campaign discourse centred on law-and-order and welfare delivery versus unemployment, inflation, farm distress and the stray-cattle problem, as widely reported during the polls; the BJP retained power while the SP improved its seat tally as the principal opposition. In this Legislative Assembly segment, the local verdict hinged on candidate networks and booth-level conversion as much as alliance symbols. Leading contenders by votes included: Veer Vikram Singh (BJP, 77,800 / 39.89%); Rajesh Yadav (SP, 77,443 / 39.71%); Munna Singh (INC, 17,504 / 8.98%); Rajesh Kashyap (BSP, 15,236 / 7.81%).

Campaign noise statewide does not erase the arithmetic of this Legislative Assembly segment: the gap between Veer Vikram Singh and Rajesh Yadav is the binding fact for seat 131, and every other claim about caste blocs or welfare messaging has to be tested against that published margin of 357 votes.

Geographical & Administrative Profile

Shahjahanpur is part of the Rohilkhand belt of north-central Uttar Pradesh. Headquartered at Shahjahanpur, the district mixes agrarian plains with trading towns; farm incomes, small industry and communal–caste coalition arithmetic often travel together in election seasons. Administratively, Katra is Legislative Assembly number 131 under Shahjahanpur (headquarters: Shahjahanpur). Like neighbouring segments, it mixes rural habitations and market nodes where roads, schools, health access and welfare delivery travel with voters as strongly as statewide narratives.

Geography here is not ornamental for election reading. Flood plains, market roads and block headquarters shape who can mobilise, who migrates for work, and which booth clusters decide close Assembly Constituency contests. Katra sits inside that Shahjahanpur administrative map even when national television talks only of alliances.

History & Past Election Trends

On the same constituency lineage, recent Legislative Assembly outcomes were — 2017: VEER VIKRAM SINGH PRINCE (BJP) by 16,730 votes; 2012: Rajesh Yadav (SP) by 875 votes.

Against that backdrop, the 2022 win for Veer Vikram Singh (BJP) in Assembly Constituency number 131 should be read as continuity where the same camp had dominated, or as another swing where the lineage had flipped before — never by treating the serial number alone as eternal identity.

Statistics & Gender-wise Polling Analysis

Electors: 338,784. Votes polled: 195,016. Turnout: 57.56%. Winner Veer Vikram Singh (BJP): 77,800 (39.89%); runner-up Rajesh Yadav (SP): 77,443 (39.71%); margin: 357 — a photo-finish relative to total votes polled in this Assembly Constituency.

Men slightly outnumbered women among recorded voters: male 109,929 (56.51%), female 84,604 (43.49%), other 3.

Turnout 57.56% with 195,016 votes from 338,784 electors remains the participation baseline for comparing this seat with neighbouring Legislative Assembly segments in Shahjahanpur.

Issues That Drove Voting Behavior

Statewide themes included suraksha/law-and-order messaging, labharthi welfare schemes, Hindutva-plus mobilisation, and opposition focus on jobs, price rise, farm incomes and stray cattle. In Shahjahanpur, voters also weighed farm incomes, small-town jobs, communal harmony, rural roads. a photo-finish for Veer Vikram Singh (BJP) against Rajesh Yadav (SP) suggests the winner’s camp converted a broader preference in seat 131.

None of those themes automatically explain every booth. The usable conclusion for Katra is narrower: Veer Vikram Singh (BJP) outpolled Rajesh Yadav (SP) by 357 votes under 57.56% turnout, and that is the 2022 mandate recorded for Assembly Constituency number 131.

Reading 2022 carefully means separating statewide wave talk from booth-level conversion in Katra. Veer Vikram Singh (BJP) converted 77,800 votes; Rajesh Yadav (SP) had 77,443. Turnout 57.56% and margin 357 in seat 131 signal organisational reach across polling stations rather than a single-day mood swing alone.

For journalists and researchers, the safer frame is lineage continuity plus the published 2022 table: electors 338,784, votes polled 195,016, and the head-to-head between Veer Vikram Singh and Rajesh Yadav. District cues in Shahjahanpur still matter — roads, floods, farm prices, migration and welfare delivery — but they must be weighed against what the EVM count actually recorded in this Assembly Constituency / Legislative Assembly seat.