MEERUT: Over 2 crore voters are set to exercise their franchise across 55 assembly constituencies in nine districts of UP on Monday. Several Muslim-majority seats would be keenly watched as the community constitutes more than 40% of the population in six of these districts.
The districts going to the polls in the second phase are Saharanpur, Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Budaun, Bareilly, and Shahjahanpur. A total of 586 candidates are contesting the elections, out of which there are 69 women candidates. Of the total voters, 1.08 crore are male, 0.94 crore are female, and 1,269 are transgender voters. During the 2017 phase two elections, 38 seats were won by the Bharatiya Janata Party, 15 by the Samajwadi Party, and two went to Congress.
Deoband, an assembly seat in Saharanpur, is in focus as the Yogi Adityanath government is building an ATS centre close to the renowned Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband. Both the CM and senior BJP leaders have used public platforms to call the seminary the "Gangotri of Terrorism."