Voting begins at 58 assembly seats across 11 districts in UP

The battle for Uttar Pradesh began today with voting in 58 assembly seats spread across 11 districts in the western part of the state.

Polling began at 7 am and is being held in accordance with the Covid guidelines issued by the Election Commission. The voting will end at 6 pm.

UP elections 2022 will be held in seven phases – February 10, 14, 20, 23, 27, March 3 and 7.

Ministers whose fate will be decided in the first phase include Shrikant Sharma, Suresh Rana, Sandeep Singh, Kapil Dev Agarwal, Atul Garg and Chowdhury Lakshmi Narain.

As many as 623 candidates are in the fray in the first phase and around 2.27 crore people are eligible to vote in this phase. In 2017, the BJP bagged 53 of the 58 seats, while the Samajwadi Party and the BSP had got two seats each. One seat had gone to the Rashtriya Lok Dal.

UP Elections 2022 are perhaps the most keenly contested and politically significant election as it also has the most number of Lok Sabha seats that play a crucial role in general elections. All political parties are making a big election push in Uttar Pradesh with star campaigners drawing huge crowds at various rallies.