Lucknow, Apr 26 (PTI) Voting for the third phase of the panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh began on Monday with more than 2.72 lakh candidates in the fray in over 2.14 lakh seats across 20 districts of the state.

Polling is underway in Shamli, Meerut, Moradabad, Pilibhit, Kasganj, Firozabad, Auraiya, Kanpur Dehat, Jalaun, Hamirpur, Fatehpur, Unnao, Amethi, Barabanki, Balrampur, Siddharthanagar, Deoria, Chandauli, Mirzapur and Ballia.

"Voting started at 7 am on a peaceful note. It will continue till 6 pm," a State Election Commission (SEC) official said here.

For 746 posts of zila panchayat members 10,416 candidates are in the fray while 88,584 people are contesting for 18,530 posts of Kshetra Panchayat members. As many as 1,16,162 candidates are contesting for 14,379 village panchayats and 57,649 candidates for 1,80,473 village panchayat wards.

In both the first and second phase of the elections, 71 per cent votes were polled.

The voting of the fourth phase will be held on April 29 and counting will be held on May 2. The Allahabad High Court had asked the Uttar Pradesh government to conclude the panchayat election process by May 25.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)