NEW DELHI:
Phase I of the polling for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections on Thursday saw 59.87 per cent voting, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
“Phase I has seen 59.87 per cent polling till voting ended,” said the ECI statement said.
The 11 districts that went to polls saw a mixed turnout with Agra witnessing 60.23 per cent voting, Aligarh 60.49 per cent, Bagpat 61.25 per cent, Bulandshahr 60.57 per cent, Gautam Budh Nagar 54.38 per cent, Ghaziabad 52.43 per cent, Hapur 60.53 per cent, Mathura 62.90 per cent, Meerut 60 per cent, Muzaffarnagar 65.32 per cent and Shamli 66.14 saw per cent, the EC statistics showed.
Of the total 403 seats in UP assembly, voting for 58 seats of the phase I of the seven phase elections is being held on Thursday. There are a total of 634 candidates in fray, 73 of them are women. As many as 2.28 crore voters (1.04 of them female) will exercise their franchise at 26,027 polling booths across 10,853 polling stations in 11 districts.
WILL WIN MORE THAN 50 SEATS IN FIRST PHASE: BJP
As polling on 58 assembly seats spread in 11 districts of western Uttar Pradesh ended on Thursday, the BJP expressed confidence of sweeping the region in this year’s assembly polls also. In 2017, the party won 53 of the 58 constituencies where polling was held in the first phase.
Uttar Pradesh BJP spokesperson Harish Chandra Srivastava told IANS that the party will easily win more than 50 seats in the
first phase of assembly polls. “There is a wave in favour of the BJP under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. People are voting in favour of the BJP government. The feedback and reports collected from
ground clearly indicate that the BJP will easily win more than 50 seats of 58 in the first phase,” Srivastava said.
Another senior saffron party leader claims that like last time, this time the BJP also swept the assembly constituencies where polling was held in the first phase. “People today voted to re-elect Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh for the second time in a row. Voters in these 58 assembly constituencies are voting for development, law and order, and people centric governance of the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.
The BJP claims that people have rejected the repeated attempts to polarize the election on caste and religious line by the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) alliance. “The SP-RLD alliance left no stone unturned to polarize the polls on Jat-non Jat or Hindu-Muslim. But the voters have rejected their attempt to polarize the polls. People have voted to take Uttar Pradesh to a new height of development,” a party insider said.
OVER 1 LAKH COPS DEPLOYED IN 1ST PHASE
Over one lakh personnel of the Uttar Pradesh police and home guards besides 800 companies of paramilitary were deployed for the first phase of assembly polls in western Uttar Pradesh on Thursday, according to officials.
As many as 623 candidates, including 73 women, are in the fray in the first phase with around 2.28 crore voters — 1.24 crore men and 1.04 crore women, state Election Commission officials said.
According to a UP police statement, 800 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) were received by the state for the first phase of polls.
A CAPF company has an operational strength of around 70-80 personnel.
Of these, 724 companies were for booth duty, 15 companies for strong-room duty, five companies for EVM security, 26 companies for quick response at police stations, 20 companies for inter-state barrier duty, 66 companies for law and order duty,
and nine companies were attached with flying squad team, it said. Agencies