Lucknow, Nov 7 (IANS) Tens of thousands voted across Uttar Pradesh Saturday in 11 assembly and one Lok Sabha by-elections, with actor Raj Babbar of the Congress pitted against the daughter in law of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav in the Firozabad parliamentary seat.
By noon, 27 percent voters had exercise their franchise in Firozabad, said Umesh Sinha, the state’s chief electoral officer. About 15 percent polling was estimated in other places.

Raj Babbar, formerly of the Samajwadi Party, is pitted against Dimple Yadav in Firozabad. All across the constituency, voters lined up in long queues.

Although the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are also in the fray in Firozabad, the main battle is between the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.

“Polling is going on smoothly. Besides sporadic allegations and counter-allegations, no trouble has been reported,” Sinha said.

Polling started at 8 a.m. for the assembly seats of Lucknow West, Puwayan (Shahjahanpur), Isauli (Sultanpur), Hainsar Bazar (Sant Kabirnagar), Padrauna (Kushinagar), Kolasala (Varanasi), Rari (Jaunpur), Etawah, Bhartana (Etawah), Lalitpur and Jhansi besides the Firozabad Lok Sabha seat.

The assembly elections followed resignations by 10 legislators and the death of another.

As many as 4.9 million voters are eligible to vote Saturday. A total 2,300 micro observers were deployed in and around 5,616 polling stations, which were monitored by some 2200 digital and 700 video cameras.