New Delhi: The battle for Uttar Pradesh — said to be the semi-final before the general election of 2024 — began this morning. 58 constituencies in the crucial western part of the State, the hub of farmers’ protest, are polling amid a four-cornered contest.

As many as 623 candidates including 73 women are in the fray for the first phase and around 2.28 crore voters including 1.24 crore men and 1.04 crore women besides others are eligible to cast their franchise, officials of the State Election Commission said.

An average voter turnout of 35 percent was recorded across the 58 seats till 1 pm. Among the prominent candidates in the first phase are Pankaj Singh, sitting MLA from Noida and son of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Baby Rani Maurya, former Uttarakhand Governor, who is contesting from Agra Rural. 

Polling began at 7 am and voting will continue till 6 pm, and the counting of votes will take place on March 10. The 11 districts where the elections are being held today are Shamli, Hapur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Mathura and Agra.

Following some complaints of EVM & VVPAT malfunction, Chief Electoral Officer Ajay Kumar Shukla said they are being addressed immediately. “Law and order is maintained at all polling stations and voting is underway peacefully,” he said.

In 2017, BJP had bagged 53 of the 58 seats, while the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had got two seats each. One seat had gone to the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD).