Once a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bastion, it is the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) that has the highest number of MLAs in this region.
However, Chief Minister Mayawati does face a stiff challenge in defending 30 seats that it won in the 2007 elections.
Fifty-nine of the state's 403 assembly constituencies will go to polls in the second phase, against 55 in the first phase.
Saturday's constituencies are spread across nine districts – Azamgarh, Gorakhpur, Ballia, Ghazipur, Maharajganj, Deoria, Mau, Sant Kabir Nagar and Kushinagar. Most of them are located along the Bihar border.
A high 62 per cent voted Feb 8 on the first day of the crucial battle for Uttar Pradesh involving primarily four actors -- the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party, Samajwadi Party, Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress.
Saturday will see 20,426 polling stations and some 20,800 electronic voting machines (EVM).
Informed sources said over 120,000 officials, including 55,000 paramilitary forces and 10,000 Provincial Armed Constabulary personnel, would be deployed on Saturday.
Meanwhile, campaigning for the third phase continues across UP and all eyes would be in Amethi where the Gandhi siblings are likely to address crowds together. Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is most likely to join sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra at a rally. He is also scheduled to address rallies in Allahabad and Varanasi.
Meanwhile, BJP's star campaigner Uma Bharti will be meeting her supporters in Mahoba on Saturday. Also, other leaders like Arun Jaitley, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Rajnath Singh and Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be campaigning across several areas that vote in phase 3.
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