LUCKNOW : In the seventh and the last phase of the 75-day battle of nerves, 13 Lok Sabha seats of the most crucial Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh recorded a voters’ turnout of 56.6 per cent till 5 pm on Saturday and it is likely to revise in the days to come. However, the voters’ turnout was 58.14 per cent in the same phase in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. The voting over the 13 seats, including the VVIP constituency of Varanasi where PM Modi was in fray, ended at 6 pm sealing the fate of 144 candidates. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a third consecutive term in the Lok Sabha from Kashi.
Besides Varanasi, the other seats which went to poll on Saturday included Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Bansgaon (SC), Ghosi, Salempur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Mirzapur and Robertsganj (SC).
According to the ECI, the polling percentage recorded across 13 seats was -- Ballia 50.56%, Bansgaon 50.06%, Chandauli 58.19%, Deoria 54.13%, Ghazipur 53.53%, Ghosi 53.19%, Gorakhpur 52.53%, Kushinagar 56.04%, Maharajganj 58.66%, Mirzapur 55.83%, Robertsganj 54.25%, Salempur 50.21% and Varanasi 54.83.
The by-poll for the Duddhi (reserved for Scheduled Tribes) assembly constituency in Sonbhadra district was also held on Saturday. The poll percentage in Duddhi stood at 54.48 till 5 pm.
In the last phase of election, besides PM Modi, three union ministers including Anupriya Patel of Apna Dal (S) from Mirzapur, Dr Mahendra Chandra Pandey of the BJP from Chandauli and Pankaj Chaudhury also of BJP from Maharajganj were in fray.
Moreover, in Gorakhpur, the bastion of UP CM Yogi Adityanath, two actors of Bhojpuri film industry—Ravi Kishan of BJP and Kajal Nishad of SP—were locked in a tough battle. Ravi Kishan is the sitting MP seeking a second term from Gorakhpur. Gorakhpur has earlier been represented in the Lok Sabha by Adityanath for five times. UP CM Yogi Adityanath exercised his franchise in Gorakhpur, while Union Minister Anupriya Patel, a candidate from Mirzapur, cast her vote in Mirzapur. From Ghazipur, the bastion of gangster-turned-politician Ansari brothers, Afzal Ansari was leading the opposition assault on S ticket while in Ballia, son of former prime minister Chandrashekhar, Neeraj Shekhar was trying to protect the political legacy of his father. contested.
According to the EC, voting for all the Lok Sabha seats in the seventh phase, barring Robertsganj, ended at 6 pm. In the Robertsganj (SC) Lok Sabha seat and Duddhi assembly constituency, voting concluded at 4 pm.