Among those leading included Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from Gorakhpur, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav from Karhal, Shivpal Yadav from Jaswant Nagar, and Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya from Sirathu.

 Counting of votes for the 403 assembly seats in Uttar Pradesh began on Thursday morning with a three-layer security in place and cameras installed at all counting centres. In the initial rounds, postal ballots were counted.