The election to the 17th Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly was held from 11 February to 8 March 2017 in 7 phases. This election saw a voter turnout of 61.11% compared to 59.40% in the previous election. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the election by an overwhelming three-quarters majority of 325 seats despite not projecting a chief ministerial candidate before the election. As part of its election strategy, BJP contested under a collective leadership and capitalised mostly on the political clout and 'brand' of its leader Narendra Modi.

On 18 March 2017, Yogi Adityanath was appointed as the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Then Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya and Dinesh Sharma were appointed as Deputy Chief Ministers.

Background

Electoral process changes In January 2016, the Election Commission of India published updated electoral rolls in all 403 assembly segments. In July 2016, Election Commission decided to increase the number of polling booths in Uttar Pradesh for the 2017 Assembly elections. New polling centres will be planned in the constituencies having more than 1,500 registered voters as well as polling booths in six constituencies of Muzaffarnagar, Budhana, Purkazi, Khatoli, Charthawal and Midanpur to be raised from 1,769 to 1,819 booths. Voter assistance booths would be set up and photo slip of voters in a new design would be sent to them. First time, the Form-2B would contain the photograph of the candidates and their nationality.

Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines was used along with EVM in 30 assembly constituencies covering 14 districts including Varanasi, Ghaziabad and Bareilly constituency.

Assembly constituencies of Uttar Pradesh having VVPAT facility with EVMs Lucknow West Lucknow North Lucknow East Agra Cantonment Agra South Aligarh Bareilly Govind Nagar Arya Nagar Ghaziabad Meerut Moradabad Saharanpur Nagar Allahabad North Allahabad South Ayodhya Gorakhpur Urban Jhansi Nagar Varanasi North Varanasi Cantt.

As per the special summary revision of electoral rolls, there are a total of 14.05 crore voters in Uttar Pradesh as of January 2015. + Final voters list for Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election 2017 S.No Group of voters Voters population 1 Male 7.7 crore (70.7 Million) 2 Female 6.3 crore (60.3 Million)3 Third Gender 6,983 (Six thousand nine hundred and eighty three) Total Voters 14.05 crore

Schedule

Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh were held between 11 February and 8 March 2017. The term of the outgoing government ended on 27 May 2017.

On 4 January 2017, The Election Commission of India announced the election schedule to the Legislative Assembly of Uttar Pradesh along with the other four state (Goa, Manipur, Punjab and Uttarakhand) which are due for an election. The entire election is scheduled into 7 phases.

Phase Name of district No. of assembly constituencies Phase total Voter turnoutPhase 1 (11 February 2017) Shamli 3 73 64%Muzaffarnagar 6Baghpat 3Meerut 7Ghaziabad 5Gautam Buddha Nagar 3Hapur 3Bulandshahar 7Aligarh 7Mathura 5Hathras 3Agra 9Firozabad 5Etah 4Kasganj 3Phase 2 (15 February 2017) Saharanpur 7 67 66%Bijnor 8Moradabad 6Sambhal 4Rampur 5Bareilly 9Amroha 4Pilibhit 4Kheri 8Shahjahanpur 6Badaun 6Phase 3 (19 February 2017) Farrukhabad 4 69 62%Hardoi 8Kannauj 3Mainpuri 4Etawah 3Auraiya 3Kanpur Dehat 4Kanpur Nagar 10Unnao 6Lucknow 9Barabanki 6Sitapur 9Phase 4 (23 February 2017) Pratapgarh 7 52 61%Kaushambi 3Prayagraj 11Jalaun 3Jhansi 4Lalitpur 2Mahoba 2Hamirpur 2Banda 4Chitrakoot 2Fatehpur 6Rae Bareli 6Phase 5 (27 February 2017) Balrampur 4 52 58% Gonda 7 Ayodhya 5 Ambedkar Nagar 5 Bahraich 7 Shrawasti 2 Siddharthnagar 5 Basti 5 Sant Kabir Nagar 3 Amethi 4 Sultanpur 5Phase 6 (4 March 2017) Maharajganj 5 49 57% Kushi Nagar 7 Gorakhpur 9 Deoria 7 Azamgarh 10 Mau 4 Ballia 7Phase 7 (8 March 2017) Ghazipur 7 40 60% Varanasi 8 Chandauli 5 Mirzapur 4 Bhadohi 3 Sonbhadra 4 Jaunpur 9

Predictions Opinion polls Various organisations/agencies have been conducting opinions polls to predict voter intentions in the upcoming legislative assembly elections.

Date Ref Polling org./agency BSP BJP SP + INC Others March 2016 ABP News Opinion Poll 185 120 93 531%24%34%5% Jul–Aug 2016 ABP News-Lokniti 103-113 (108) 124-134 (129) 149-165 (157) 6-12 (9)26%27%35%11% Aug 2016 India TV-CVoter 95-111 (103) 134-150 (142) 138-162 (150) 4-12 (8)25.4%27.79%33.7% Oct 2016 India Today-Axis 115-124 (118) 170-183 (175) 102-115 (107) 2-6 (3)28%31%31% Dec 2016 ABP News-Lokniti-CSDS 93-103 (98) 129-139 (134) 154-170 (162) 9Jan 2017India Today-Axis39-43180-191 168-1781-420.1%34.8%33.2%Jan 2017The WEEK-Hansa Research20-24 (22)192-196 (194)178-182 (180)5-9 (7)27 January 2017TNSPIMT23177 201 29 January 2017 News 24 (India) 76 120 (191) 30 January 2017 ABP News-Lokniti-CSDS 76-86 (81) 118-128 (123) 187-197 (192)23%29%35% 30 January 2017 Times Now-VMR47202 1477 Polls average 89 157 153 4

Exit polls Various organisations/agencies have been conducting Exit polls to predict voter intentions in the legislative assembly elections. Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran had published an exit poll promoting BJP, after first phase of the election. This led to its editor being arrested for violating the ban on exit polls during the election.

Polling org./agency Date Ref BSP BJP SP + INC OthersVMR6420012019 9-March 2017Dainik Bharat363094711 9-March 2017MRC901851208 9-March 2017Today's Chanakya27285883 9-March 2017AXIS28-42251-27988-1126-16 9-March 2017CVoter8716114114 9-March 2017Gramener6719313310 9-March 2017India TV Forecast81 - 93155 - 167135-1470 9-March 2017 ABP News-CSDS 60-72 164-176 156-169 02-06 9-March 2017TNSPIMT 47 176 178 02 9-March 2017 Polls average 67228 144 8

Result The election results for all 403 Legislative Assembly seats were declared on 11 March 2017.

+ ← Summary of 11 February – 8 March 2017 Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly election results PartyPopular voteCandidates Votes % ±pp Contested Won +/−Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) 3,44,03,299 39.67% 24.7% 384 312 265Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) 1,92,81,340 22.23% 3.7% 403 19 61Samajwadi Party (SP) 1,89,23,769 21.82% 7.7% 311 47 177Indian National Congress (INC) 54,16,540 6.25% 5.4% 114 7 21Independents (IND) 22,29,453 2.57% 1.5% 1462 3 11Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) 15,45,811 1.78% 0.55% 277 1 8Apna Dal (Sonelal) (ADAL) 8,51,336 0.98% 0.98% 11 9 9Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) 6,07,911 0.70% 0.07% 8 4 4 Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (NISHAD) 5,40,539 0.62% 0.6% 72 1 1Peace Party of India (PECP) 2,27,998 0.26%2.0% 68 0 4 All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) 2,04,142 0.24% 38 0 Lokdal (LD) 1,81,704 0.21% 0.1% 81 0 Bahujan Mukti Party (BMUP) 1,52,838 0.18% 0.2% 182 0 Communist Party of India (CPI) 1,38,764 0.16% 68 0 Mahan Dal (MD) 96,087 0.11% 0.8% 14 0 Shiv Sena (SS) 88,595 0.10% 0.07% 57 0 Other parties 1,080,555 1.25% 7.3% 1,643 0 3None of the above (NOTA) 7,57,643 0.87% 0.9% colspan="3" align="left" Total 86,728,324 100.00 403 ±0Valid votes8,67,28,32499.97Invalid votes27,1750.03Votes cast / turnout8,67,55,49961.24Abstentions 5,49,08,14738.76Registered voters 14,16,63,646

Region-wise +RegionSeatsBJPSPBSPAD-SINCPurvanchal 10269 5713 448 85 51 7Bundelkhand1919 160 50 700 4Central6445 398 342 74 42 1Avadh9075 699 616 300 5Ruhelkhand5238 3014 150 1100 2Western7666 544 173 2502 4Total Seats403312 26547 17719 619 97 21

Results by constituency