UP Phase 1 Elections 2022: 7.93 per cent voting till 9 am

Lucknow, Feb 10: An average 7.93 per cent votes were polled in the first two hours of polling in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, Election Commission officials said. Polling, which started at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm, is going on peacefully, they added.

Polling is being held in 58 assembly seats spread across 11 districts in the western part of the state in the first phase. "Average 7.93 per cent polling was witnessed in UP in first two hours (7 am-9 am)," an Election Commission (EC) official said.

Agra recorded 7.53 per cent polling, Aligarh 8.26 per cent, Baghpat 8.93 per cent, Bulandshahr 7.51 per cent, Gautam Buddh Nagar 8.33 per cent, Ghaziabad 7.37 per cent, Hapur 8.2 per cent, Mathura 8.30 per cent, Meerut 8.44 per cent Muzaffarnagar 7.5 per cent and Shamli 7.7 per cent, he added.

As many as 623 candidates including 73 women are in the fray in the first phase and around 2.28 crore voters including 1.24 crore men and 1.04 women besides others are eligible to cast their franchise, officials of the state election commission said. The state ministers whose fate will be decided in the first phase of voting include Shrikant Sharma, Suresh Rana, Sandeep Singh, Kapil Dev Agarwal, Atul Garg and Chowdhury Lakshmi Narain. Leading the campaign for the BJP, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pitched for a double-engine government for fast-paced development while attacking the Samajwadi Party-Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) combine.

While Union Home Minister Amit Shah and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath tried to put the spotlight back on the alleged "exodus" of Hindus from Kairana before 2017, SP president Akhilesh Yadav claimed that people have made up their mind to vote out the BJP from power.

The SP-RLD alliance has centred its electioneering on farmers' issues and has attacked Adityanath over poll promises. BSP chief Mayawati, who started the campaigning late, reminded people of her government's track record on law and order in the past.

The Congress under the leadership of its general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has generated interest among the people as seen in door-to-door campaigns. The first phase covers the Jat-dominated belt of western UP from where farmers had participated actively in the stir against the Centre's three agri laws in the national capital.

In 2017, the BJP bagged 53 of the 58 seats, while the Samajwadi Party and the BSP had got two seats each. One seat had gone to the Rashtriya Lok Dal.