Lok Sabha election 2019: Uttar Pradesh votes today; state to see triangular contest for 13 seats

The seventh and the final phase of election will start on May 19 and a total of 59 constituencies spread over six states and one union territory are going to the polls today. The biggest and one of the most important state of them all, Uttar Pradesh, will see a triangular contest between SP, BSP and BJP for the 13 Lok Sabha seats. Some of the big names of Indian politics like Prime Minister Narendra Modi, state BJP president Mahendra Nath Pandey, union Ministers Manoj Sinha and Anupriya Patel and former Minister R.P.N. Singh are among the high-profile contestants in this phase.

The 13 seats going to polls in the last phase of elections are Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Chandauli, Deoria, Kushinagar, Ghazipur, Ballia, Ghosi, Mirzapur, Maharajganj, Basgaon, Robertsganj and Salempur. Back in 2014, BJP and its ally, Apna Dal, bagged all 13 seats. However, last year, BJP lost the important by-election in Gorakhpur to SP candidate supported by the BSP. The seventh phase of the Lok Sabha elections in UP will see Samajwadi Party contesting in eight seats and BSP in five seats. Some of the closely watched Lok Sabha constituencies are:

From Gorakhpur, the traditional seat of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, BJP has fielded Ravi Kishan, the Bhojpuri star. On the other hand, the Samajwadi Party has put up Ram Bhual Nishad.

State BJP President Mahendra Nath Pandey will have it difficult in Chandauli as the constituency has over 6 lakh Yadav and Dalit voters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to sail through easily in Varanasi. In the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi had won Varanasi by a margin of 3.7 lakh votes, polling 58 percent votes from the seat. The Congress has fielded Ajay Rai from Varanasi and SP has finalized Shalini Yadav as their candidate.

In Deoria parliamentary constituency BJP's fielded senior leader Ramapati Ram Tripathi. He is facing Binod Kumar Jaiswal of the BSP and Congress' Niyaz Ahmad Khan.

Meanwhile, there are a total of 14,43,16,893 eligible voters in Uttar Pradesh, of which 7,81,88,467 are male, 6,61,20,052 female and 8,374 voters of the Third Gender. The state is divided into 6 regions: West Uttar Pradesh, Ruhelkhand, Doab, Avadh, Bundelkhand, Poorvanchal.

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