Over 57 per cent turn out was recorded on Monday in 54 assembly seats in the seventh and last phase of Uttar Pradesh polls, marking the end of the voting process spread over two months in the crucial state. The counting of votes in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa will be on March 10.
In the final phase, a total of 613 candidates were in the fray for the 54 seats, including those falling in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary segment Varanasi. Voting started at 7 am and ended at 6 pm, except in Naxal-hit Chakia in Chandauli, and Robertsganj and Duddhi seats in Sonbhadra where it concluded at 4 pm.
According to the Election Commission, 57.53 per cent voting was recorded. The polling percentage in the seventh phase of the 2017 Assembly elections was 59.56 per cent. No untoward incident was reported from the state, Additional Chief Electoral Officer BDR Tiwari said.
Chandauli saw a relatively high turnout of 61.99 per cent and Varanasi 58.80 per cent. Azamgarh witnessed 55.00 per cent voting, Bhadohi 56.90 per cent, Ghazipur 56.54 per cent, Jaunpur 56.45 per cent, Mau 57.02 per cent, Mirzapur 58.89 per cent and Sonbhadra 60.74 per cent. The final polling figure will be available on Tuesday, an official said.
The state has seen a decrease in voter turnout in the last three phases. In the first six phases, the state recorded a turnout of 62.43 per cent, 64.42 per cent, 62.28 per cent, 61.52 per cent, 57.32 per cent and 55.79 per cent.
The state had recorded an overall 61.24 per cent polling in the 2017 assembly elections. The fate of Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party president Om Prakash Rajbhar and several state ministers was decided in this round, in which 2.06 crore people were eligible to vote.
Besides state tourism minister Neelkanth Tiwari, who is contesting for the Varanasi South seat, other ministers in the fray in the last leg are Anil Rajbhar (Shivpur-Varanasi), Ravindra Jaiswal (Varanasi North), Girish Yadav (Jaunpur) and Ramashankar Singh Patel (Marihan-Mirzapur). Dara Singh Chauhan, who resigned from the Yogi Adityanath cabinet and joined the Samajwadi Party, contested from the Ghosi seat in Mau.
Om Prakash Rajbhar (Zahoorabad), Dhananjay Singh (Malhani-Jaunpur) as the JD(U) candidate, and Abbas Ansari, the son of gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari, from Mau Sadar seat, also contested in the final phase. Campaigning in this phase reached its crescendo with Modi leading the BJP’s poll blitzkrieg in Varanasi and its adjoining districts.
Several exit polls on Monday forecast a clear majority in Uttar Pradesh and an edge in Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur for the BJP while the Aam Aadmi Party is predicted to win in Punjab, where the Congress was in power.
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