About 62% voters exercised their right to franchise on Sunday to elect representatives for one Nagarpalika at Dadri and five nagar panchayats at Dankaur, Bilaspur, Jehangirpur, Rabupura and Jewar in Gautam Budh Nagar district.
The state government doesn't conduct local body polls in cities governed by industrial development authorities such as Noida and Greater Noida.
Barring reports of minor clashes from some booths, the polling went off peacefully in the district, an official said. There are about 1.34 lakh voters in the district. Out of them, 72,752 are male voters and 61,550 female voters. The local body elections are being held across the state.
"Nearly 62% voting was reported in the local body elections held on Sunday," district magistrate MKS Sundaram said. There were 180 polling booths across the district. At sensitive booths, additional police force was deployed. Some people complained about non-inclusion of their names on the voters' list.
In the past fortnight, several clashes were reported. In one of the cases, some persons were injured during the election campaign. However, no violent incident was reported on Sunday.
According to police, at Bihari Lal College polling booth in Dankaur, clashes broke out between two groups over bogus voting. Police reached there and sorted out the matter. "The names given by one group, who allegedly cast fake votes, were checked. The allegations were found baseless," Ashwani Kumar, SHO, Dankaur police station, told Hindustan Times on Sunday evening.
{{/usCountry}}According to police, at Bihari Lal College polling booth in Dankaur, clashes broke out between two groups over bogus voting. Police reached there and sorted out the matter. "The names given by one group, who allegedly cast fake votes, were checked. The allegations were found baseless," Ashwani Kumar, SHO, Dankaur police station, told Hindustan Times on Sunday evening.
{{/usCountry}}Dadri residents are not happy with the functioning of Nagarpalika. "Dadri has been reduced to a slum. The area should have been handed over to Noida or Greater Noida authority. They could have developed it better," said Arjun Bhati, a resident of Dadri.
This was the third and penultimate phase of the urban local bodies' elections in Uttar Pradesh. According to state election commissioner SK Agarwal, about 55% voters cast their votes in 20 districts. In the third phase, the largest of the four-phase civic polls, voters of 20 districts will elect their local bodies, including the mayor of Aligarh. Elections for the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation will be held on July 4, the last phase of the polls. The counting of votes would be done on July 7.