12.18% voting in Uttar Pradesh till 11 a.m. (2nd Lead)

Only 12.18 per cent voting was recorded in the first four hours polling for Uttar Pradesh's 13 parliamentary constituencies in the seventh and final phase of the Lok Sabha elections, according to a voter turn-out app.

As of 11 a.m., Deoria saw the highest voter turnout of 18.67 per cent, while Ghazipur recorded the lowest turnout of 6.40 per cent.

Chandauli recorded 16.58 per cent voting followed by Mirzapur 15.20 per cent, Maharajganj 13.21 per cent, Gorakhpur 13.08 per cent, Bansgaon 13.02 per cent, Kushinagar 11.86 per cent, Varanasi 10.87 per cent, Robertsganj 10.58 per cent, Salempur 9.16 per cent, Ghosi 9.15 per cent and Ballia 8.30 per cent.

Voting began at 7 a.m. across 25,874 polling booths in Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon, Ghosi, Salempur, Balia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Robertsganj constituencies. It will end at 6 p.m.

Some 2.32 crore voters will decide the fate of the 42 candidates in the fray. In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies won all the 13 seats in Uttar Pradesh. However, the saffron party lost the prestigious Gorakhpur seat in the 2018 bypoll.

This year, the BJP is facing a direct challenge from the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party (SP-BSP) alliance on 10 seats, while in two seats -- Kushinagar and Deoria -- it's a triangular contest with the Congress. The Congress is contesting on 12 seats.

The saffron party is contesting on 11 Lok Sabha seats, while its ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) is contesting in Robertsganj and Mirzapur, currently held by Union Minister Anupriya Patel.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is re-contesting from Varanasi. Besides Modi, 25 other candidates are in fray from Varanasi. Modi's main challengers are Congress' Ajay Rai and SP-BSP's joint candidate Shalini Yadav.

Among the other major contestants are BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit chief Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union Minister Manoj Sinha and Congress leader R.P.N Singh. The BJP has fielded Bhojpuri actor Ravi Kishan as its candidate from Gorakhpur.

--IANS

aks/rtp