UP polls phase-1: 58 seats spread across 11 districts will go to polls tomorrow

The stage is set for 58 assembly seats in 11 districts of Uttar Pradesh to go to polls on Thursday. The 11 districts going to polls on February 10 are Shamli, Meerut, Hapur, Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Aligarh, Agra, Gautam Buddha Nagar, and Mathura. The voting will begin at 7 AM and continue till 6 PM. In Noida Assembly seat that will go to polls tomorrow, Samajwadi Party's Sunil Chaudhary will contest against Defence Minister Rajnath Singh's son Pankaj Singh. 

Congress leader Pankhuri Pathak and BSP leader Kriparam Sharma will also contest from this seat. In Kairana seat, Samajwadi Party leader Nahid Hassan will contest against BJP leader Mriganka Singh. In Aligarh seat, SP leader Zafar Alam will fight against BJP's Mukta Raja. Congress leader Mohd Salman Imtiyaz and BSP leader Raziya Khan will also be contesting on this seat. For Agra Rural (SC) seat, SP leader Mahesh Kumar Jatav will contest against former Uttrarakhnad governor and BJP leader Baby Rani Maurya. Upendra Singh from Congress and Kiran Prabha Kesari from BSP will also be in the fray here.

In Meerut, SP leader Rafiq Ansari is fielded against BJP's Kamal Dutt Sharma. Congress's Ranjan Sharma and BSP's Mohd Dilshad are also contesting from this seat. Nearly 50,000 paramilitary personnel from 412 companies of central paramilitary forces have been deployed at different locations to maintain law and order as the election campaign for the first phase of assembly polls in western Uttar Pradesh ended on Tuesday evening. The police have sealed the borders of the State and strict vigilance is underway to maintain peace in 58 assembly constituencies which will go to polls tomorrow. 

"The highest deployment will be seen in Muzaffarnagar, Aligarh and Meerut. In Mathura alone, 75 companies of paramilitary forces have been deployed and the total force deployed is 21,000 in this constituency," security officials told ANI about the deployment of troops in sensitive areas. The upcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in seven phases from February 10 to March 7. The counting of votes will take place on March 10.