After a grand Roadshow of PM Modi and his Kashi Vishwanath visit, now Akhilesh and Rahul Roadshow at Varanasi. Rahul too will be at the Kashi Vishwanath temple

If the Prime Minister is there can Rahul Gandhi be behind. After the grand roadshow of PM Narendra Modi, Rahul-Akhilesh too have an equally grand roadshow at Varanasi. And as the sources suggest, very soon Rahul Gandhi too will be seen inside the temple

40% Polling at the 6th Phase of Elections in UP:

Hundreds of thousands of voters came out to cast ballots in the penultimate phase of the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections, registering 40 per cent voting in six hours, with the highest polling seen in Kushinagar, Mau and Maharajganj constituencies.

Till 1 p.m., 36 per cent was reported from Gorakhpur and Deoria, 39 from Ballia, and 42 per cent each from Maharajganj, Kushinagar and Mau, an Election Commission official said.

Azamgarh, the Lok Sabha constituency of Samajwadi Party patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, after recording the lowest turnout in the first four hours, picked up considerably and at 1 p.m. it registered 41 per cent polling. 

The SP patriarch did not campaign in his constituency following a fallout with his son Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, who replaced him as the party President.

Mau where mafia don turned politician Mukhtaar Ansari was fielded by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) reported steady polling through the day. A minor scuffle was reported from the Sadar area in Mau where police had to resort to lathicharge.

Over 1.72 crore voters from 49 constituencies are deciding the fate of 635 candidates, of whom 175 are fighting independently. Polling was slow in the first two hours, which later picked up steadily.

There are several interesting contests in this phase as Swamy Prasad Maurya of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Surya Pratap Shahi, BJP, Shyam Bahadur Yadav, SP and others battle it out.

While Maurya is contesting from Padrauna, former state Bharatiya Janata Party chief Surya Pratap Shahi is fighting from Pathardeva.

Among the early voters was BJP's MP from Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath.

Maximum number of candidates are in Gorakhpur city where 127 candidates are in fray for its nine seats, while the minimum number of candidates - seven - are in Mohammadabad Gohna seat in Mau.

PM narendra Modi's offers prayers at Kashi Vishwanath temple

Modi, who is also the Lok Sabha MP from Varanasi, paid tribute to Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya before begning his roadshow.

Thousands of people were lined up along the routes of Modi's road show, ahead of the March 8 polls in the temple town of Varanasi.

PM offered prayers at Kashi Vishwanath Temple and Kaal Bhairav temple in the spiritual capital of India.

Huge crowds gathered in Varanasi for Modi's road show which started from the BHU gate.

Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah and other senior leaders were present to greet him when he arrived at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in a special Indian Air Force chopper.

After a brief interaction he moved in his bulletproof car in a cavalcade to a guest house.

#WATCH: Prime Minister Narendra Modi's roadshow proceeds in his parliamentary constituency Varanasi pic.twitter.com/nBirbVemSr

— ANI (@ANI_news) March 4, 2017