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UP urban local body elections: All you need to know
The UP civic body polls will be held on May 4 and 11, and the counting of votes will be done on May 13.
The preparations in the state of Uttar Pradesh are in full swing as it looks forward to its urban local body elections, to be held in less than a month and is seen as a crucial political exercise to gauge public sentiments of urban voters ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections. As of the deadline on Monday, more than 51,000 people filed nominations for various posts for phase one of the election. Out of these, nearly half, over 26,634 nominations were submitted on Monday alone.
The elections will be held on May 4 and 11, and the counting of votes will be done on May 13.
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Everything you need to know about the key civic body poll:
The Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission announced last week that elections will take place for a total of 14,684 posts. State election commissioner Manoj Kumar, giving details, said out of these posts 17 seats of mayoral positions. This is an increase in the number of posts – one more than in 2017, with Shahjahanpur set to elect its first mayor in the upcoming election.
Kumar also said elections will be held for 1,420 posts of corporator, 199 of nagar palika parishad chairperson, 5,327 of nagar palika parishad member, 544 of nagar panchayat chairperson and 7,178 seats of nagar panchayat member.
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This time, there has been an increase of 107 local bodies as compared to 2017 – with the addition of one municipal corporation, one municipal council and 105 nagar panchayats.
In a major boost for women representation in the political domain, the number of seats reserved for women has gone up from 255 to 288 this time. Of the 17 mayoral positions, five are reserved for women. These are Lucknow, Kanpur and Ghaziabad, Agra for women (SC) and Firozabad for women (OBC).
The first phase of the election scheduled on May 4, will take place in 37 districts. The second phase of the election on May 11, will go to voting in 38 districts. While, Saharanpur, Moradabad, Agra, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Devipatan, Gorakhpur and Varanasi divisions would go to polls in the first phase, 38 districts of Meerut, Bareilly, Aligarh, Kanpur, Chitrakoot, Ayodhya, Basti, Azamgarh and Mirzapur will hold the election in the second phase.
Kumar also informed that 23,617 polling booths and 7,362 polling centres have been set up to hold voting for 390 local urban bodies comprising 7,288 wards in phase one.
An estimated 4.23 crore voters are eligible to cast their votes in the upcoming poll – a 96.33 lakh increase from 2017. Out of these 2,40,09,810 (2.4 crore) voters will exercise their franchise in the first phase.
