UP: first phase voting kicks off

The first phase of the seven-phase assembly elections bagan on Thursday in Uttar Pradesh. As many as 623 candidates are in the fray for the first phase of the assembly polls in 58 seats of 11 UP districts. Nearly 2.27 crore voters will decide the fate of these candidates. The counting of votes will take place on March 10. Polling bagan at 7.00 a m. Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Mathura, Atrauli, Noida and four seats in Agra are among the key seats in the first phase of polling for Uttar Pradesh election. In the first phase, the fate of six ministers from the Yogi Cabinet will be decided. These ministers are Shrikant Sharma, Suresh Rana, Sandeep Singh, Kapil Dev Agarwal, Atul Garg and Chowdhury Lakshmi Narain. Besides them, BJP's UP vice-president Pankaj Singh is also fighting the polls from Noida.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued guidelines for voters exercising their franchise amid the ongoing Covid pandemic. Measures like sanitizers, thermal scanner, masks, and gloves etc have been announced by the EC. Social distancing, token system will be there at polling booths to avoid queues.