Amid tight security, counting for the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly began at 8 am on Sunday to decide the fate of 5,533 candidates. The counting, which is being taken up at the 70 district headquarters, is also being done in Mirzapur Lok Sabha constituency where by-poll was necessitated by the murder of Samajwadi Party (SP) member Phoolan Devi in New Delhi last year. As many as 25 companies of paramilitary forces are manning the counting centres where 127,393 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) are kept in strong rooms. Officials in the election office said that with the votes being polled through the EVMs, all the results were expected by the evening. Important leaders whose fate will be decided are chief minister Rajnath Singh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) vice-president Mayawati, Rashtriya Kranti Party (RKP) chief Kalyan Singh, Speaker Kesari Nath Tripathi, former chief minister and Congress candidate Ram Naresh Yadav, Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari and Apna Dal national president Sone Lal Patel.
Among the 965 candidates with criminal background whose fortunes are also being decided are state sports minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya, Mukhtar Ansari, Apna Dal state unit president Atiq Ahmed and handloom minister Hari Shankar Tiwari. While the BJP contested for 319 seats, the main oppositionn Samajwadi Party fielded candidates in 390 constituencies. The BSP and the Congress contested 402 seats each, the RKP 333 and Apna Dal 227 seats. Bureau Report