Lucknow, Mar 23 (IANS): Voting was underway here on Friday to elect 10 Rajya Sabha members from Uttar Pradesh.

Voting for the crucial polls began at 9 a.m., at the Tilak hall in the Vidhan Sabha building.

It will conclude at 4 p.m., after which counting will begin at 5 p.m.

Shivpal Singh Yadav, the Samajwadi Party's (SP) legislator from Jaswantnagar, told reporters after casting his vote that he was sure that the Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP) candidate Bhimrao Ambedkar would win the Rajya Sabha seat.

He also trashed reports that there would be cross voting in favour of a ninth candidate for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Anil Jain.

"The entire opposition is united in these biennial polls," he said.

Congress legislators have also cast their vote.

Ajay Kumar said all conspiracies and dirty tricks of the BJP to wean away MLA's from other parties will fail miserably.

The Congress's seven legislators have pledged support to the BSP candidate.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is also in the Vidhan Sabha premises along with many of his ministerial colleagues.

BJP has fielded nine candidates while the SP and BSP have named one each.