An estimated 27.76 per cent of voters have exercised their franchise in the fifth phase of Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh on Monday.

In this phase 14 LS seats and an assembly by-election voting is being held amid severe heat wave conditions in polling region.

ECI sources here said that the polling was underway in a peaceful note and except for some initial problems of the EVMs in the early hours, there were no complaints from anywhere.

In state capital Lucknow, voters, mostly senior citizens were queued up at their respective booths from 6 in the morning whereas polling started at 7am. In the morning hours, voting started late in several booths of Lucknow due to faulty EVMS.

In this phase, fate of 144 candidates including five Union ministers and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be decided.

The Union ministers are Rajnath Singh from Lucknow, Smriti Irani from Amethi, Kaushal Kishore from Mohanlalganj, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti from Fatehpur and Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma from Jalaun.

Rahul Gandhi is contesting from Rae Bareli. He has reached Rae Bareli from Delhi and will be visiting polling stations in the constituency, starting from the booths of Bachhrawan and Harchandpur Assembly segments .

There are 2.70 crore voters — 1.43 crore male and 1.27 crore female — in these 14 Lok Sabha seats who will exercise their franchise in 17,128 polling stations and 28,688 polling booths.

Lucknow (East) assembly segment has 4.59 lakh voters.

In Lucknow, BSP chief Mayawati, Defence Minister and Lucknow BJP candidate Rajnath Singh cast their votes while Union Minister Smriti Irani exercised her right in Gauriganj ( Amethi).

All the leaders appealed to the voters to exercise their democratic rights.

Talking to media after casting her vote in Lucknow, Mayawati said, “I hope that this time there will be a change (in power). It can be estimated from the fact that the public is silent and watching everything.”

The EC said the average voting percentage in 14 Lok Sabha of UP till 9 am was 12.89 per cent which reached to 27.76 percent at 11am.

At 11AM the constituency wise polling was: Amethi– 27.20%, Banda– 29.25%,
Barabanki– 30.60%,Faizabad– 29.05%,
Fatehpur– 28.54%,Gonda– 26.68%,
Hamirpur– 28.24%, Jalaun– 26.97%,
Jhansi– 29.82%, Kaiserganj– 27.92%,
Kaushambi– 26.12%, Lucknow– 22.11%
Mohanlalganj– 28.52% and Rae Bareli– 28.10%.

In Lucknow (East) assembly bypolls , 22.48% polling was recorded.

Polling started from 7am and will end at 6pm.