Campaign ends, Phase 1 tomorrow

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Priyanka Gandhi Vadra waves during an election campaign in support of the Congress party at Maderika, in Uttar Pradesh’s Amethi,

Campaigning ended on Monday evening for the first phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh in which 55 Assembly seats, spread over 10 district will go to polls on Wednesday.
The first phase of polling will be held in 10 districts including Sitapur, Barab-anki, Bahraich, Gonda, Faizabad, Ambedkar Nagar, Shravasti, Balram-pur, Siddhartanagar and Basti. On Monday, all parties made a last-minute effort to win over voters and hectic campaigning was seen across the state.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, after addressing a press conference in Varanasi, addressed meetings in Ghazipur Azam-garh and Jaunpur while his sister Ms Priyanka Gandhi Vadra continued her campaign in Rae Bareli and Amethi.
Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh addressed meetings in Bahraich and Congress MP Raj Babbar addressed a series of meetings in Faizabad.
BSP president and UP chief minister Mayawati held rallies in Kushinagar and Gorakhpur while BJP president Nitin Gadkari addressed poll meetings in Ballia and Ghazipur. Ms Uma Bharti addressed meetings in Siddharta-nagar and Faizabad and deputy chief minister of Bihar Sushil Modi addressed meetings in Maharajganj.
Mulayam Singh Yadav addressed meetings in Mau and Azamgarh while son, Akhilesh Yadav addressed meetings in Faizabad, Bahraich and Sitapur.
In the first phase of elections, a total of 867 candidates, including 65 women, are in fray. A total of 109 candidates in this phase have more than one criminal case pending against them. The SP tops the list with 28 criminal candidates, followed by BSP and BJP which have 24 criminal candidates. The Congress has 15 such candidates while the Peace Party has 12. Nearly 144 candidates in this phase are crorepatis.
According to the Uttar Pradesh Election Watch findings, the average asset of each SP candidate is `1.74 crore, BSP is `3.83 crore, Congress is `1.34 crore, Peace Party is `1.01 crore and JD(U) is `32.09 lakh.