Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh recorded a polling percentage of 46.83 till 3 pm as voting for the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha election was underway on Saturday, the Election Commission (EC) said.
Polling is being held in 13 constituencies of the state, including Varanasi, from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third consecutive term in the Lok Sabha.
Besides Varanasi, the other seats where polling is taking place are Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon (SC), Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Mirzapur and Robertsganj (SC).
A total of 144 candidates — 134 men and 10 women — are in the fray.
According to the EC, the polling percentage till 3 pm is — Ballia 43.54, Bansgaon 43.71, Chandauli 51.27, Deoria 47.32, Ghazipur 46.13, Ghosi 44.82, Gorakhpur 44.69, Kushinagar 48.33, Maharajganj 51.16, Mirzapur 48.81, Robertsganj 47.15, Salempur 43.48 and Varanasi 48.38.
Uttar Pradesh sends the highest number of 80 members to the Lower House of Parliament among all states and Union Territories.
The bypoll for the Duddhi (reserved for Scheduled Tribes) assembly constituency in Sonbhadra district is also being held. The poll percentage in Duddhi stood at 48.28 at 3 pm.
Six candidates are contesting from the Duddhi seat that fell vacant after BJP MLA Ram Dular’s disqualification following his conviction in a rape case.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath exercised his franchise in Gorakhpur, while Union Minister Anupriya Patel, a candidate from Mirzapur, cast her vote in Mirzapur.
Gorakhpur has earlier been represented in the Lok Sabha by Adityanath for five times. Union ministers Mahendra Nath Pandey, Pankaj Chaudhary and Patel are contesting from Chandauli, Maharajganj and Mirzapur respectively.
From Ghazipur, mafia don-turned-politician late Mukhtar Ansari’s brother Afzal Ansari is in the fray and from Ballia, former prime minister Chandrashekhar’s son Neeraj Shekhar is contesting.
Campaigning for the 13 seats ended on Thursday evening.
According to the EC, voting for all the Lok Sabha seats in the seventh phase, barring Robertsganj, will end at 6 pm.
In the Robertsganj (SC) Lok Sabha seat and Duddhi assembly constituency, voting was scheduled to end at 4 pm.
In Ballia, a 70-year-old man collapsed and died at a polling booth set up at a primary school in Chak Bahuddin village, an official said.
While Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Sikandarpur Ravi Kumar said Rambachan Chauhan fell ill before he could join the queue of voters at the booth, local residents claimed that he experienced dizziness while standing in the queue and fainted.
Voters in Ballia’s Math Dhajju Giri village boycotted the polls over their demand for road connectivity and electricity supply. Local SHO Dharamveer Singh said there are about 900 voters in the village.
In Rasulpur village of Ballia, several voters boycotted the Lok Sabha polls and raised their demand for an underpass, saying they were facing great difficulties in its absence.
Circle Officer of Rasra Mohammad Faheem Qureshi said only about 25 voters have exercised their franchise at the polling station.
In a series of posts tagging the Election Commission on ‘X’ , the Samajwadi Party alleged slow voting at a booth under the Chandauli Lok Sabha segment and accused the presiding officer at a booth in Ballia Lok Sabha constituency’s Bairia and the BJP booth agents of rigging.
The party also alleged that CCTV cameras had been switched off by the administration at booths 430 and 431 in the Chanbe assembly segment under the Mirzapur Lok Sabha constituency.
In Maharajganj district, voters were given a sapling each at the polling centre set up at a primary school in Nagar Panchayat Chowk.
Uttar Pradesh is witnessing a direct contest between the BJP-led NDA and INDIA bloc members Samajwadi Party (SP) and Congress.
State Chief Electoral Officer Navdeep Rinwa said there are 2,50,56,877 voters in the 13 Lok Sabha seats in this phase, including 1,17,44,922 women and 1,058 third-gender electors.
