Guwahati: The first phase of assembly elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh began on Thursday, with 7.95 percent of eligible voters casting ballots as of 9 a.m.
There are 623 candidates in the fray, with 2.27 crore people eligible to vote in this round.
The election is being held in 58 constituencies scattered over 11 districts in the state’s western area. The majority of these seats are held by Jats, who were active participants in last year’s protests in the national capital against the Centre’s three contentious agriculture policies. The impact of the farmers’ agitation will be tested in the hotly contested first round, in which the incumbent BJP is set to face a serious challenge from the resurgent alliance of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).
The fate of nine ministers in Yogi Adityanath’s ministry will be decided in the first round of voting. Suresh Rana (Thana Bhawan), Kapil Dev Aggarwal (Muzaffar Nagar), Dinesh Khateek (Hastinapur), Atul Garg (Ghaziabad), Anil Sharma (Shikarpur), Sandeep Singh (Atrauli), Shrikant Sharma (Mathura) and GS Dharmesh (Agra Cantt) are the ministers whose electoral fate would be decided.
The election for the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly will take place in seven stages, with the final round taking place on March 7. On March 10, the votes will be counted.
As part of the first phase, votes are being cast in 11 districts – Shamli, Muzaffar Nagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra.
The BJP won 53 of the 58 seats in the 2017 elections, while the SP and the Bahujan Samaj each gained two. The RLD received one seat.