Fate of more than 6,500 candidates will be decided today as counting for all 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh for which polling was held in seven-phases started on Tuesday morning.
“Counting for all 403 seats has started at 8 a.m. and will continue till all results are announced amidst tight security arrangements,” Chief Electoral Officer Umesh Sinha told PTI.
The CEO has already directed the district level officers to ensure foolproof security in and around counting centres.
He said that 100 metre periphery of all counting centres have been declared no vehicles zone.
The fate of 6,839 candidates, who are in fray for 403 seats in the state will be decided. In last assembly elections held in 2007, 6,086 candidates contested the polls.
Today’s result would decide who will be the king and who will be the king maker in this politically volatile state.
Stakes are high for all the major political parties including BJP, BSP, SP and Congress-RLD alliance as there was multicornered contest on a number of seats.
The results would decide stature of stalwarts like Union Ministers Beni Prasad Verma, Sriprakash Jaiswal, Salman Khurshid, Incharge of Congress’ in UP Digvijay Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, Uma Bharati and Mayawati.
This would also decide how much jailed former minister Babu Singh Kushwaha’s factor worked, which campaigned in favour of BJP candidates, who worked specially in Bundelkhand region.
Following reports of exit polls, mood is upbeat in SP, but how many seats the party would get in reality would become clear after counting is over. Various exit polls have predicted 180-210 seats to Mulayam Singh Yadav led party.
It would also decided the fate of ruling BSP and also test whether the social engineering formula of Mayawati has clicked or failed.
Whether the charisma and appeal for change made by Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, who campaigned extensively across UP in favour of party candidates, has worked with the electorates or not would also be decided today.
He criss-crossed the state addressing 211 rallies and held road shows in 18 constituencies for more than three months between November 14 last year to February 29.
BJP, which not only fielded senior leaders in polls, is hoping to better its tally this time. The party is expecting that high voter turnout would work in changing its fortunes in this crucial elections.
Senior party leaders held several meetings in a day during the campaign.
This year UP registered record polling in all seven phases. An average 59.17 per cent polling was registered which was a record in electoral politics of the state.
In last elections while BSP won absolute majority with 206 seats, SP, which was the ruling party before 2007 elections, was reduced to 97, BJP got 51 and Congress 22.
Prominent candidates, whose fate would be decided include Kalraj Mishra, Uma Bharati, Surya Pratap Shahi, Kesari Nath Tripathi, Hukum Singh of BJP, Rita Bahuguna Joshi, Pramod Tiwari, Louis Khurshid of Congress, Sukhdeo Rajbhar, Swami Prasad Maurya, Ramveer Singh of BSP, Mata Prasad Pandey, Shivpal Singh Yadav, Mohd Azam Khan of SP and Jayant Chowdhary of RLD.
