The three Naxal-affected districts of Sonbhadra, Mirzapur

and Chandauli, along with the five Assembly segments under Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency, will be in prime focus in this phase.

Tight security has been put in place in these districts.

The counting of votes polled in all the seven phases of the Assembly polls will be taken up on March 11.

A total of 1.41 crore voters, including 64.76 lakh women, will exercise their franchise in the last phase.

14,458 polling booths have been set up in this phase.

In the 2012 state Assembly polls, out of these 40 seats, 23 went to SP, 5 to BSP, 4 to BJP, 3 to Congress and 5 to others.

The seven districts going to polls in this phase are Ghazipur, Varanasi, Jaunpur, Chandauli, Mirzapur, Bhadoi and Sonebhadra.

In all, 535 candidates, including 40 (BSP), 32 (BJP), 31 (SP), 9 (Congress), 21 (RLD) and 5 (NCP) are in the fray in this phase.

While the maximum number of candidates (24) are from the Varanasi Cant seat, the minimum number of candidates (six) are contesting from Kerakat (SC).

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)