Phase-6 of Uttar Pradesh state assembly elections concluded at 6 pm on Thursday. Starting at 7 am, a total of 57 seats went under the polling process and recorded a voter turnout of over 55%. The voting took place in the following districts: Ambedkarnagar, Balrampur, Ballia, Basti, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Kushinagar, Sant Kabir Nagar, Maharajganj and Siddharthnagar. Some big names in the UP Politics had their fates on the line today. These include Congress’ Ajay Kumar Lallu, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Yogi Adityanath and Samajwadi Party (SP)’ Swami Prasad Maurya. The seventh phase will be the final one, scheduled to be conducted on March 7.
This phase was simply an extension of Phase-5, in which polling had begun for the Purvanchal region of the state. A total of 111 seats make up the Purvanchal region, of which 57 spread across ten districts saw polling today.
The battle of political stalwarts
Six hundred seventy-six candidates were in the fray in this phase, out of which some prominent names cannot be missed. These include BJP’s Yogi Adityanath, who fought his first assembly elections from the Gorakhpur constituency. Congress’s Ajay Kumar Lallu fought from the Tamkuhi Raj constituency and Swami Prasad Maurya for the SP in Fazilnagar.
Interesting Events
The political parties have been on the offensive ever since the voting began. The first attack came from Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, who accused the rival parties of dividing the voters among religious, caste, and communal lines. She said that under the garb of politics, issues such as inflation and unemployment were being ignored. “The biggest strength in a democracy is vote, which can make or destroy your future. Voters need to be aware and vote for people who are ready to work for you round the clock,” Zee News quoted her words while addressing a public meeting in Sonbhadra.
The BJP wasn’t far behind in the war of words as Ravi Kishan, the BJP MP from Gorakhpur, also had some exciting things to say. He claimed that the BJP would win all nine seats in Gorakhpur Mandal. He also directed the voters’ attention to the Ram mandir issue as he said that now that the construction of Ram Mandir is underway, it is up to the voters to establish ‘Ram Rajya’ in the state. He also claimed that the turnout in the Purvanchal region will be “historic” and that the BJP will win more than 300 seats in the state.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the voters to participate in the voting with enthusiasm as he tweeted, “festival of democracy in Uttar Pradesh entered its sixth phase today”. He further said, “It is my humble request to all the voters that they must participate in this festival with their votes. Your one vote is the power of democracy”, on his Twitter account.
