Nearly 2.6 crore people in 73 constituencies of western Uttar Pradesh will be eligible to vote on Saturday, in the first of seven phases of the Assembly elections. The polls are being seen as a litmus test for Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
A total of 839 candidates, mainly from the BJP, BSP, Congress-Samajwadi Party alliance, and RLD are in the fray from seats in 15 districts, where 26,823 polling stations have been set up.
Among the electorate are 1.17 crore women and 1,508 candidates belonging to the third gender category.
Prominent contestants include Pankaj Singh (Noida), son of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh; Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Pradeep Mathur (Mathura), who faces BJP spokesman Srikant Sharma; Mriganka Singh (Kairana), daughter of BJP MP Hukum Singh; and controversial BJP MLAs Sangeet Som and Suresh Rana, from Sardhan and Thanabhawan, respectively.
In 2012, both the SP and BSP bagged 24 seats each in the region, with the Rashtriya Lok Dal, headed by Ajit Singh, bagging nine, the Congress getting five and the BJP, 11.
Around 6,000 paramilitary personnel are being deployed in all the 887 polling centres in Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring Shamli, particularly in areas that had witnessed communal riots in 2013.