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'Decisive stage, time to choose': Yogi Adityanath on UP Assembly election
UP Assembly Election 2022: The seventh and final phase of the will be held on March 7 and votes will be counted on March 10.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath - contesting his first Assembly election today from his stronghold of Gorakhpur - said the ongoing polls had reached a decisive stage. He declared that each vote for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party was a step to making the state India's number 1 economy. Adityanath also took a swipe at Akhilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party, which is widely seen as the BJP's main rival in this election.
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"Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections have reached the decisive stage. You have seen developmental projects in the last five years, be it from AIIMS inauguration to Kushinagar International Airport. It is time to decide between us and terror-supporting people. Each of your votes will make Uttar Pradesh India's No 1 economy," the chief minister said.
Adityanath had earlier offered prayers at the Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur before the beginning of the sixth phase of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls.
Voting began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm.
Polling will be held for 57 seats in 10 districts - Gorakhpur, Ambedkarnagar, Ballia, Balrampur, Basti, Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharajganj, Sant Kabir Nagar, and Siddharthnagar.
Adityanath tops the chart of the prominent faces in this phase; he is contesting the polls from the Gorakhpur (urban) seat. Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded Khwaja Shamsuddin against the chief minister, while the Samajwadi Party has given its ticket to Subhavati Shukla, the wife of a late former BJP leader. The Congress' Chetna Pandey is also in the fray here.
The chief minister, a five-time MP from the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha constituency, cast his vote early this morning. In the 2017 election this seat was won by the BJP's Radha Mohan Das Agrawal by a 60,000-vote margin, and the party won eight of nine Assembly segments here.
The seventh and final phase of the election will be held on March 7 and votes will be counted on March 10.
With input from PTI
