New Delhi: About 24.45% polling was witnessed in the first four hours of the sixth phase of Uttar Pradesh elections in 49 assembly seats that started amidst tight security arrangements on Saturday morning.
“The polling was about 24.45% till 11am. It’s going on peacefully,” office of UP chief electoral officer said in Lucknow.
Around 1.72 crore voters, including 94.60 lakh men and 77.84 lakh women, are eligible to cast their votes in this round to decide the fate of 635 candidates, including 63 women.
Polling in Uttar Pradesh is crucial for the incumbent Samajwadi Party government, challengers Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) because there are pockets of dominance for all three major political parties. The sixth phase is crucial for Samajwadi Party because its stronghold, Azamgarh, a key constituency won by Mulayam Singh Yadav in 2014 Lok Sabha, is witnessing polling.
The second last phase of Uttar Pradesh is also witnessing the dominance of BJP as Gorakhpur, the area of influence of Member of Parliament (MP)Yogi Adityanath is going to polls and another crucial player in this phase of polling is criminal turned politician Mukhtar Ansari whose area of dominance in Ghazipur district is also going to polls.
The importance of the eastern Uttar Pradesh in which there are a total of 89 seats which will go to polls in the sixth and seventh phase can be understood from the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi represents the Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi which is scheduled to go to polls on 8 March, in the last phase of polling.
Meanwhile, 34.65% voting reported in the first phase of polling in Manipur, the areas witnessing the polls are Imphal East, Imphal West, Bishnupur and the hill districts of Churachandpur and Kangpokpi. According to the Press Trust of India (PTI), political parties in their campaigns mainly focused on the continuing economic blockade imposed by the United Naga Council and the state government’s inability to break it. The other important issues which hogged the attention of the political parties are alleged lack of development, massive corruption, misappropriation of funds and worsening law and order in the state.
(PTI contributed to this story)
