UP polls: 6th phase sees over 55 per cent voting, one more phase to go

Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath casts his vote during the 6th phase of Assembly elections, in Gorakhpur on Thursday. Pic/PTI

More than 55 per cent voting was recorded in the sixth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls on Thursday. The prominent faces among the 676 candidates for 57 seats spread across 10 districts in this phase include Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur Urban and state Congress president Ajay Kumar Lallu from Tamkuhi Raj. The voting started at 7 am and continued till 6 pm. Around 2.15 crore people were eligible to vote in this phase.

So far, voting for 292 of the 403 Assembly seats has been completed. The final phase of the elections on the remaining 54 seats will be held on March 7. In the 2017 Assembly polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won 46 of the 57 seats. There was about 46.70 per cent polling till 3 pm, according to the Election Commission of India's Turnout app.

Additional Chief Election Officer (ACEO), BDR Tiwari said polling was going on peacefully in the state. The Samajwadi Party (SP) has pitted the wife of the late Upendra Dutt Shukla, a former BJP leader, against Adityanath. Azad Samaj Party founder Chandrashekhar Azad is also contesting against the Uttar Pradesh chief minister from Gorakhpur Urban.

Swami Prasad Maurya, who was a minister in the Adityanath government and had quit the BJP to join the SP, is contesting from Fazilnagar. The campaigning for this phase witnessed the political parties going for an all-out attack against each other. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the BJP's rivals by tagging them as dynasts, who he claimed can never make India capable or empower Uttar Pradesh.

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No. of candidates in fray in sixth phase

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