E-Paper
38 U.P. districts to vote in 2nd phase of civic polls today
Seven municipal corporations will be electing their mayors; polling to be held for 7,006 posts in 370 ULBs
Lucknow: Over 1.92 crore voters are likely to decide the fate of 39,146 poll aspirants in 38 districts, in the second and final phase of urban local body (ULB) elections in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday. The counting of votes for both phases is scheduled for Saturday.
Seven municipal corporations (nagar nigams)—Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Shahjahanpur, Aligarh, Kanpur Nagar and Ayodhya—will be electing their mayors. Shahjahanpur will vote for the first time as a nagar nigam.
Polling will be held for 7,006 posts in 370 ULBs, which include seven nagar nigams, 95 nagar palika parishads and 268 nagar panchayats.
“All arrangements are in place for peaceful and fair voting in the second phase for which a total of 19,618 booths under 6,378 polling centres have been readied,” state election commissioner (SEC) Manoj Kumar said. The voting will take place from 7 am to 6 PM, he added. “However, all electors who join the queue within the specified time will be allowed to vote,” he observed.
Four out of the seven mayor seats that are heading for polls on Thursday were won by the BJP in the last civic elections in 2017. They are Ghaziabad, Bareilly, Kanpur Nagar and Ayodhya.
While the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) won the Aligarh and Meerut seats, the SP drew a blank. Shahjahanpur, the hometown and assembly constituency of state finance minister Suresh Khanna, was upgraded into a municipal corporation in 2018.
In total, the BJP won 14 of the total 16 mayoral seats in 2017. The principal opposition party in the state--the Samajwadi Party--however, fared better in nagar palika board and nagar panchayat elections.
While the BJP is faced with the challenge to at least maintain its 2017 tally, the SP is focusing to regain some lost ground in alliance with the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD), a party that has good influence in several districts of western U.P.
In the ongoing civic polls, the BJP has fielded 10,758 candidates (out of whom 4,248 are women), the highest among all parties. The SP has fielded the second highest number of candidates – 5,231 (of whom 2,223 are women); followed by BSP with 3,787 (1,611 women) contestants. The Congress and the AAP have fielded 2,994 (1,395 women) and 2,447 (1,031 women) contestants, respectively.
Over 66% of the total candidates in both phases of the polls are independents.
Districts to go to polls in 2nd phase
Meerut, Hapur, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Bareilly, Budaun, Shahjahanpur, Pilibhit, Hathras, Kasganj, Etah, Aligarh, Kanpur, Kanpur Dehat, Farrukhabad, Etawah, Kannauj, Auraiya, Hamirpur, Chitrakoot ,Mahoba, Banda, Ayodhya, Sultanpur, Ambedkar Nagar, Barabanki, Amethi, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Sidharthnagar, Azamgarh, Mau, Ballia, Sonbhadra, Mirzapur and Bhadoi.
