The polling for biennial elections to 11 seats of the Uttar Pradesh legislative council, including six teachers’ and five graduate constituency seats, started on Tuesday. The votes will be counted on December 3.
Officials said in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, voters will be thermal scanned before they are allowed to vote.
The Election Commission has said no more than 1,000 voters be allotted in each polling booth. It has ensured availability of PPE kits, face masks and face shields at all polling centres, where social distancing protocols would be in place during voting hours.
As many as 1,269,817 voters for five graduate seats would vote at 1,808 voting centres. There are 206,335 voters eligible to vote for six teachers’ seats at 813 voting centres.
A total of 199 candidates are in the fray.
A majority of candidates are contesting as independents, many of whom are giving sleepless nights to candidates of prominent political parties. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) expelled one of its leaders in Western Uttar Pradesh for contesting as an independent.
In Lucknow, an independent candidate pledged support to the BJP at the last minute.
{{/usCountry}}In Lucknow, an independent candidate pledged support to the BJP at the last minute.
{{/usCountry}}The elections to the 11 seats were due this summer but were deferred due to Covid-19.
In teachers’ constituencies, government teachers of class 10th and above register themselves as voters. For graduate seats, all those who have graduated three years before the poll-date are voters.
Eleven observers have been deployed for the polls along with 952 sector magistrates, 413 zonal magistrates.