The electoral battle for India's most populated state Uttar Pradesh began on Thursday as 58 assembly seats spread across 11 districts in the western part of the state have gone to the polls in the first phase of the legislative assembly elections.
Shamli, Meerut, Hapur, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Aligarh, Agra, Gautam Buddha Nagar, and Mathura are the 11 districts that are going to the polls.
A large number of people from these districts had actively participated in the mass protests against the controversial farm laws which have since been repealed.
The polling state start at 7 a.m. (IST) amid COVID-19 protocols and will continue till 6 p.m.
As many as 623 candidates are in the fray and around 22.7 million people are eligible to vote in the first phase of these polls.
In previous state assembly elections held in 2017, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagged 53 out of the 58 seats, while the state’s main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) got two seats each. One seat went to the Rashtriya Lok Dal, which has since formed an alliance with the SP.
The Uttar Pradesh polls are perhaps the most keenly contested and politically significant as the state has the largest number of parliamentary seats.
All political parties are making a big election push in the state, with star campaigners drawing huge crowds at various rallies. The elections in other parts of the state will be held on 14, 20, 23, 27 February, and 3 and 7 March.
To maintain law and order during the polling, heavy security arrangements have been made.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh State Chief Yogi Adityanath and other political leaders have made an appeal to the citizens to cast their votes.