Lucknow, June 1 (Reporter) Approximately 55.55 percent of over 2.50 crore voters exercised their franchise in 13 Lok Sabha Constituencies till 6 pm in the seventh and the last phase of polls in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, a senior poll official said here. The poll percentage is likely to increase further as the Election Commission will share the final polling percentage on Sunday. UP Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Navdeep Rinwa said that the polling which was held at 14,183 centres and 25,658 polling booths was held between 7 am to 6 pm. "The counting of all the seven phases of Lok Sabha polls will be held on June 4," he said. Rinwa said that 55.55 percent votes were polled in 13 seats. He said 60.08 percent voting was recorded in Maharajganj, 54.69 percent in Gorakhpur, 57.04 in Kushinagar, 55.30 percent in Deoria, 51.59 percent in Bansgaon, 54.6 percent in Ghosi, 51.25 percent in Salempur, 51.84 percent in Ballia, 55.21 percent in Ghazipur and 60.34 percent in Chandauli. According to the poll officer, 56.35 percent votes were polled in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from where he is seeking historic win for the third time. In Mirzapaur where Union Minister Anupriya Patel is also seeking the third term, 57.72 percent votes were polled. In Robertsganj 55.61 percent votes were polled. He said that one of a voters died at a polling station at booth number 257 in Ballia. "An ex-gratia of Rs 15 lakh will be given to the employees and Home Gurads deployed on poll duty who died on Friday," the CEO said. Earlier, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath exercised his franchise at a polling station in Gorakhpur. He reached booth number 223 of English Medium Primary School Gorakhnath (Kanya) in the city area of Purana Gorakhpur at 7 am. Besides CM, Governor of Himachal Pradesh Shiv Pratap Shukla and sitting MP Ravi Kishan exercised their franchise. Similarly, Lieutenant Governor (LG) of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha exercised his franchise at a booth set up in the primary school in Ghazipur district. It may be noted that out of 13 Lok Sabha seats in this phase, 11 seats had been won by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2019 general elections. The CEO said that a total 144 candidates, including 134 male and 10 female, are in the fray. Eleven seats are of general category and two are reserved for Scheduled Castes. "These seats were spread over 11 districts including Maharajganj, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Deoria, Mau, Ballia, Ghazipur, Chandauli, Varanasi, Mirzapur and Sonbhadra. He said that to keep a close watch on the voting, the Election Commission had also deployed three special observers, 13 general observers, eight police observers and 14 expenditure observers. "Apart from these 1,861 sector magistrates, 243 zonal magistrates, 130 static magistrates and 2,550 micro observers were also deployed," Rinwa said. It may be noted that this phase included one of the most watched and high profile seats of Varanasi, which has been represented by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014 and considered a BJP bastion with the party never losing it since 1996, barring once in 2004. PM Modi, who is seeking a third term from Varanasi, secured a landslide victory by obtaining 63 per cent of the total votes in 2019. This time, he faces state Congress president Ajay Rai and BSP’s Athar Jamal Lari. It may be noted that Modi had defeated Ajay Rai by a landslide margin in 2019 and in 2014, Aam Aadmi Party's convenor Arvind Kejriwal contested against the PM and was placed second. In Gorakhpur, the hometown of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, two actor-turned politicians are challenging each other. Sitting BJP MP Ravindra Kishan Shukla, popularly known as Ravi Kishan, is fighting to retain the seat for the second time in a row. He faces INDI bloc candidate Kajal Nishad, also a Bhojpuri actor. Mirzapur seat is also very important for the NDA. In the 2019 polls, Union Minister and Apna Dal (Sonelal) president Anupriya Patel won form the seat. She is up against SP’s Rajendra S Bind and BSP’s Manish Tripathi. In another hot seat Ghazipur, where Parasnath Rai, who is considered close to Jammu and Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha will be facing Afzal Ansari, brother of gangster-turned-mafia Mukhtar Ansari who died recently, on SP ticket. In 2019, Afzal Ansari defeated senior BJP leader Manoj Sinha by over 1.19 lakh votes. Umesh Kumar Singh is in the fray from BSP. It will be the first time in a long time that any election is being held in the absence of Mukhtar Ansari, who died on March 23. In Maharajganj, BJP candidate and Union Minister Pankaj Choudhary is being challenged by Virendra Chaudhary of Congress. In yet another hot seat Ballia, Neeraj Shekhar, son of former prime Minister Chandrasekhar and Rajya Sabha member, is facing a tough contest from Sanatan Pandey of SP and Lallan Singh Yadav of BSP. In the last election the seat was won by Virendra Singh Mast of BJP, who has been denied ticket this time...////...