LS polls: Voting on in 8 UP seats

LUCKNOW:  Brisk voting was on in eight of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday in the second phase of the staggered Lok Sabha elections.

Both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the SP-BSP-RLD alliance are contesting all the eight seats -- Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Hathras, Fatehpur Sikri, Nagina, Amroha, Mathura and Agra.

While the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has fielded candidates in six seats, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) are contesting from one seat each.

The Congress is also in the fray in all eight constituencies.

There are 85 candidates in contention including actor-politicians Hema Malini of BJP (Mathura) and state Congress chief Raj Babbar (Fatehpur Sikri). Uttar Pradesh Minister S.P. Singh Baghel is contesting from Agra.

A total of 1,40,76,635 people in these constituencies are eligible to vote.

The voting started at 7 a.m. amid tight security.

Chief Election Officer L. Venkateshwar Loo said a total of 1,121 polling stations have been installed with digital cameras, 781 with video cameras and 1,614 were being web monitored.

A total of 19,367 electronic voting machines (EVMs), 19,348 control units and 20,527 VVPATs have been used.