Lucknow: As Uttar Pradesh votes in the final leg of Assembly elections, a voter turnout of 8.58 per cent was recorded till 9 am Monday. The highest percentage was recorded in Mau at 9.99 per cent, followed by Jaunpur (8.99%) and Varanasi (8.93%). The seventh phase of voting covers 54 seats, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi, and decides the fate of 613 candidates. Polling began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm in Azamgarh, Mau, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur, Bhadohi and Sonbhadra districts.
Of the 54 seats in this phase, 11 are reserved for the Scheduled Castes and 2 for the Scheduled Tribes. There are 2.06 crore eligible voters. The final round of polling will also be a test of the alliances carved out by both the BJP and the Samajwadi Party (SP) with small caste-based parties. The focal point of Monday’s polls will be Varanasi, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition had won all eight Assembly segments in 2017. Congress’s Ajay Rai, after casting his vote, said, “Not many people can be seen, unlike before, when long queues were seen outside the polling booth. They haven’t made proper arrangements; people are forced to stand in the sun. People don’t seem to be excited, we’ll get a majority.”
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a tweet, “Cast your vote in the seventh and final phase today, as well as inspire other voters to use their franchise properly. The higher the vote, the stronger the democracy.” UP minister Ravindra Jaiswal, who is contesting from Varanasi North Assembly constituency, said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will win all seats in Varanasi. He added that BJP will get over 350 seats in this Assembly election.