LUCKNOW,8 April 2007 — With nearly 110 million voters, 65,000 paramilitary soldiers on standby and 18,000 voting machines put in service, India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh voted peacefully yesterday.

Forty-six percent of 16 million voters cast their votes in 62 of the state’s 403 assembly seats on the first leg of the seven-phase election, officials said.

The Election Commission was happy that the polling took place violence-free. A third of the candidates for the two leading regional parties face criminal charges, the Association for Democratic Reforms election watchdog says.

“It’s not an easy job to conduct elections in a state where criminals and mafia lords also vie for political power,” Chief Electoral Officer A. K Bishnoi said.

“There was no violence reported from anywhere in the 62 constituencies,” Bishnoi said in Lucknow.

The exit polls predicted a hung assembly with Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) finishing with most seats.

A Star News exit poll at the end of day’s balloting said BSP would end up bagging 135 of the assembly’s 403 seats, relegating the ruling Samajwadi Party to the second slot with 103 seats.

But an NDTV survey suggested 125-135 for BSP and a close 120-130 for Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s party.

The Star projected that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would get 99 seats while NDTV said it could bag 80-90. Although the Star predicted a miserable 28 for the Congress party, the other survey said it could win up to 50 seats.

If the exit polls prove correct, Uttar Pradesh is set for another splintered assembly and two or more parties would have to join hands to form the government in the sprawling state of 166 million people.

But the voter turnout yesterday was a relative low of 46 percent. The 62 constituencies covered the economically backward and mainly rural southern parts of the state. The areas included the Taj Mahal city of Agra, about 200 km south of New Delhi, and surrounding areas including Mainpuri, Kanpur, Kanpur Dehat, Jalaun, Etah, Hamirpur, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahoba, Etawah, Auraiya and Firozabad.

A total of 839 candidates, including a large number of independents, were in the fray. Election Commission officials attributed the low turnout to “undue restrictions” laid down by an overzealous Uttar Pradesh Police.

Even though the poll panel had allowed voters to use their vehicles to go to polling booths, policemen, wanting to take no chances, apparently put up hurdles in the movement of even genuine voters.

The main challenge to the Samajwadi Party comes from BSP and BJP, with the Congress desperately trying to remain relevant in a state where it once enjoyed monopoly in power. Former Prime Minister V.P. Singh’s Jan Morcha was a crucial player in Agra, whose MP Raj Babbar is its most prominent face in the state.

Samajwadi Party leaders admit they face voter anger over poor governance and lack of development.

Predictably, both BSP and BJP want to win control of the state. That could happen, considering the past when the two parties have joined together to give coalition governments.

The outcome of the Uttar Pradesh is also crucial for the Congress, which has ceased to be a friend of the Samajwadi Party, one of the many parties that had propped up a Congress-led coalition government in New Delhi three years ago.

Yesterday’s balloting came on a bad day for the Congress, which lost control of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to a resurgent BJP. The party has lost power in Punjab and Uttarakhand.

Although Uttar Pradesh politics is said to be guided by caste and religious formations, voters in both urban and rural areas told journalists they would be voting over issues such as law and order and development. This is the first time elections in the state are spread over one long month. The second phase of polling will be held April 13 for 58 seats.

The third phase will take place April 18 for 57 seats, the fourth phase April 23 also for 57 seats, the fifth phase April 28 for 58 seats and the sixth phase May 3 for 52 seats. The final phase of polling will be held on May 8 (59 seats). The results will be out May 11.