First Phase polling begins in UP amid tight security

The first phase of polling for assembly election 2012 begins today in Uttar Pradesh since 7 am. Approximately 1.70-crore voters including 95.28 lakh male and 70.44 lakh female are expected to exercise their rights in 17,621 polling stations for selecting 55 members in UP assembly.

In the first phase of UP assembly election, the fate of two ministers, 31 MLAs and 15 former ministers would seal in the electoral boxes today.

The districts where polling exercise continues are: Sitapur, Barabanki, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Bahraich, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda, and Siddharth Nagar.

A total 867 candidates including 801 male, 65 female and one eunuch are in the fray. Maximum 26 candidates are in fray for Barabanki seat, whereas Mehmoodabad has minimum number of 8 candidates.

Tight security arrangement has been deployed to conduct peaceful and smooth election.

675 companies of Central forces, 33,000 Police personnel and 44,000 home guards have been deployed to prevent any sort of chaos and misconduct in voting exercise.

As much as 1010 booth stations including Faizabad - 230, Sitapur 220, Bahriach - 160, Gonda - 150, Ambedkarnagar - 120, Balrampur - 90 and Shravasti - 40 - have been declared sensitive where tight security arrangements have been made.

The prime names whose prestige are on the litmus paper are: Cabinet Minister Lalji Verma, minister of state Sangram Singh Verma and relatives of Union Steel Minister Beni Prasad Verma whose son Rakesh Verma is contesting from Dariyabad seat there.

In 2007 assembly election Bahujan Samaj Party has won the highest number of seats (30) followed by Samajwadi Party (18), Bhartiya Janta Party (4) and Indian National Congress (3) on 55 assembly seats.