UP kickstarts nomination process for upcoming LS polls; no fillings on first day

The nomination process for eight Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh going to polls in the first phase began Monday, a senior election official said. "No nominations were filed on the first day," Uttar Pradesh Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), L Venkateshwarlu said.

Saharanpur, Kairana, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Meerut, Baghpat, Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar will vote on April 11 in the first of the seven-phase general elections for which notification was issued by the Election Commission on Monday. The nomination process would continue till March 25. Scrutiny of the nomination papers will be held on March 26 and the last day of withdrawing nominations is March 28.

Nearly 1.50 crore voters, including 82.24 lakh male and 68.39 lakh female are eligible to cast votes on April 11. Polling will be held from 7.00 am to 6.00 pm. There are 6,716 polling centres and 16,581 polling booths in this phase.