An average of 22.62 per cent voting was recorded on Wednesday in the first four hours of polling in 59 Assembly constituencies spread over nine districts of Uttar Pradesh, the Election Commission said.

The polling started at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm.

With voting underway for the fourth round in Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday urged people to come out and vote.

"Today is the fourth round of voting in the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Elections. I request all the voters to contribute in strengthening democracy by casting their valuable votes," Modi said in a tweet in Hindi.

The counting of votes will take place on March 10.

This is the fourth phase of the Assembly polls in the state, where elections are to be held in seven rounds. As many as 624 candidates are in the fray in the fourth phase.

According to the Election Commission, 2.3 crore people, including 1.14 crore men and 99.3 lakh women, are eligible to vote, for which 24,643 polling booths and 13,817 poling centres have been set up in this phase.

The districts where the poling is being held are Pilibhit, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Hardoi, Unnao, Lucknow, Rae Bareli, Banda and Fatehpur.

Lakhimpur Kheri is the district where last year four farmers were mowed down by cars allegedly carrying BJP workers. Eight people, including the farmers, were killed in violence there on October 3.

Of the 59 seats, the BJP had won 51 in the 2017 Assembly elections, four had gone to the Samajwadi Party and three to the Bahujan Samaj Party. The BJP's ally Apna Dal (Sonelal) had bagged one seat.

In 2017, 62.55 per cent polling was reported on the seats while in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, it was 60.03 per cent.

Among the prominent candidates in this phase are Uttar Pradesh Law Minister Brijesh Pathak, SP's national spokesperson Anurag Bhadauria, former SP minister Abhishek Mishra, former Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly deputy speaker Nitin Agarwal and Aditi Singh.

Union minister Ajay Mishra casts vote amid heavy security in Lakhimpur Kheri

Surrounded by a large number of security personnel, Union Minister and BJP leader Ajay Mishra, embroiled in a major controversy involving his son, cast his vote here for the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls on Wednesday.

The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs did not speak to the media, neither while going into the polling booth at a school in Banwaripur nor when he came out after casting his vote.

Purported videos on social media showed Mishra, whose vote falls in the Nighasan assembly constituency, walking to and fro the voting centre around 11.30 AM flanked by an unusually large number of security personnel.

A central minister, Mishra hogged limelight in October 2021 when eight people, including four farmers, were killed during violence in the Tikunia area in his native district here.

His son Ashish Mishra was an accused in the case and was arrested. Ashish was earlier this month granted bail by the Allahabad High Court, prompting families of the deceased farmers to move the Supreme Court over the matter.