Azamgarh, Mau, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur, Bhadohi, and Sonbhadra are the districts voting in the final phase. According to Ajay Kumar Shukla, Chief Electoral Officer, all necessary arrangements have been made for free, fair, and transparent voting in the seventh phase.
Voting for the final phase is underway with 35.51 per cent voter turnout recorded till 1 pm.
The stakes for major political players in Uttar Pradesh have reached an all-time high as the curtain falls on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, as the final and seventh phase of voting takes place on Monday. Azamgarh, Mau, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur, Bhadohi, and Sonbhadra are the districts voting in the final phase. According to Ajay Kumar Shukla, Chief Electoral Officer, all necessary arrangements have been made for free, fair, and transparent voting in the seventh phase.
In this phase, 613 candidates will compete for 54 seats, 11 of which are reserved for Scheduled Castes and two for Scheduled Tribes, from an electorate of approximately 2.06 crores.
This final round will also put the alliances formed by the BJP and Samajwadi Party with small caste-based parties to the test. Apna Dal (Sonelal) and Nishad Party, as well as Akhilesh Yadav's new friends Apna Dal (K), Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party (SBSP) of Om Prakash Rajbhar, have been trying to rally their supporters.
Once considered a Samajwadi Party stronghold, the region saw the BJP make inroads in 2017 by winning 29 seats alongside Apna Dal (4) and SBSP (4) allies (3).
UP ministers Neelkanth Tiwari, Anil Rajbhar, Ravindra Jaiswal, Girish Yadav, and Rama Shankar Singh Patel are among the prominent contestants in this phase. Dara Singh Chauhan, who left Yogi Adityanath's cabinet to join the Samajwadi Party, is also running from Ghosi in Mau.
Other prominent candidates in the final round include SBSP president Om Prakash Rajbhar (Zahoorabad), Dhananjay Singh (Malhani-Jaunpur) as a JD(U) candidate, and Abbas Ansari, son of mafia turned politician Mukhtar Ansari, from the Mau Sadar seat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP President J.P. Nadda, and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah have been extensively campaigning in Purvanchal to repeat the state's 2017 success. Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, General Secretary of the Congress, has been camping at Kabir Chaura Math in Varanasi to galvanise the Dalit voters of Purvanchal, who are significant here.