Lucknow: Polling began at 58 Assembly constituencies of Uttar Pradesh where 623 candidates, including 9 ministers, are trying their electoral luck. These constituencies, which are going to polls in the first phase, are spread over 11 districts located in the western part of the state.
Balloting started at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. According to the Election Commission, 25,800 polling booths have been set up in 10,883 polling centers in Shamli, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura and Hathras.
A total of 2.28 crore voters are eligible to decide the fate of 623 candidates, including 73 women in this phase.
Nine ministers of the Yogi Adityanath government are also trying their luck in this phase. They are Shrikant Sharma from Mathura, Atul Garg from Ghaziabad, Suresh Rana from Thana Bhawan, Kapil Dev Agarwal from Muzaffarnagar, Sandeep Singh from Atrauli, Chaudhary Laxmi Narain from Chhata, Anil Sharma from Shikarpur, GS Dharmesh from Agra Cantt and Dinesh Khatik from Hastinapur.
Of the 58 seats for which polling is being held Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 53, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) two each and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) one in the last assembly polls in 2017.
To breach BJP's fort in western Uttar Pradesh, SP and RLD have forged an alliance, which will be put to test in the first phase. Around 3 dozen seats are witnessing a direct contest between BJP and SP-RLD combine, whereas there is a triangular fight at nearly two dozen seats where all BJP, SP and BSP have fielded strong candidates.
To counter the challenge posed by the alliance, BJP has denied tickets to its 19 sitting MLAs and have fielded fresh faces. Besides, BJP has also given tickets to three leaders, who quit Mayawati's to join the saffron brigade.
To corner BJP, SP-RLD alliance has carefully worked on seat sharing equations and selection of the candidates. While SP is contesting on 28 seats, 29 have gone in the share of RLD. The Anupshahr seat has been given to another alliance partner Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) of Sharad Pawar.
The alliance has fielded new faces on 43 seats out of 58. Gautam Buddha Nagar being is the home district of BSP chief Mayawati and western UP was once considered the party's bastion, but results of the 2017 polls changed the picture.
Like BJP and alliance, BSP too has gambled by putting faith in new faces. Except for its two MLAs, the party has fielded fresh faces on the remaining 56 seats. Jat and Muslim equation decide victory and defeat in this region.
Keeping this in view both SP and BSP have played the Muslim card on more than dozen Muslim dominated seats in the first phase. While BSP has given tickets to 14 Muslim candidates, the SP-RLD alliance has fielded 12 Muslim candidates.
On the remaining seats all the political parties have made efforts to manage the Jat equation. In the first phase other than those seats from where ministers in the Yogi government are contesting, there are a few VIP seats as well.
Former Governor Baby Rani Maurya is contesting from Agra rural, BJP's fire-brand leader Sangeet Som is contesting from Sardhana and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh is in fray from Noida seat.
Big opposition leaders who are contesting in this phase include Pankaj Mallik of SP from Charthawal, former minister Shahid Manjoor from Kithore, Avatar Singh Bhadana of RLD from Jewar and Madan Bhaiyya from Loni.
While the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Samajwadi Party (SP) released their respective populist manifestos on Tuesday, Congress made an attempt to woo the voters on the eve of polling with its Unnati manifesto. (UNI)