Voting Begins in 37 Districts in Phase 1, 7,593 Candidates in Fray; CM Yogi Casts Vote

UP Urban Body Polls 2023 Updates: Voting for the first phase of urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh began at 7 am on Thursday. The poll battle is being seen as a penultimate test in the state before the 2024 parliamentary elections with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and opposition Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav leading a high-octane campaign.

With top leaders of Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) staying away from the poll campaign, the fight is between the BJP and Akhilesh Yadav’s SP. Rashtriya Lok Dal, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is also in the fray.

According to the State Election Commission, voters in 37 districts will vote in the first phase of the polls on Thursday to elect 7,593 representatives, including 10 mayors and 820 corporators.

Voting will be held from 7 am to 6 pm in all the districts.

More than 2.40 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the first round of voting, officials said, and added that all the posts are being contested on party symbols.

In the first phase, polling will be held for posts of 103 nagar palika parishad chairpersons and 2,740 nagar palika parishad members.

Apart from this, voters in the first phase will also decide the fate of 275 nagar panchayat chairpersons and 3,645 nagar panchayat members.

Altogether 44,232 candidates are in the fray in the opening round.

SEC officials said 85 representatives, including 10 corporators, have already been elected unopposed.

Polling for the second-phase polling will take place on May 11. The counting of votes for both phases will take place on May 13.

UP Urban Body Polls 2023 Latest Updates:

• CM Yogi Adityanath casts his vote in municipal elections.

• On the last day of campaigning, Adityanath had termed the polls as “Dev-Asur Sangram (battle between deities and demons).”
• BSP chief Mayawati stayed away from the campaign and on Tuesday issued an appeal through tweets to the people to vote for her party.
• Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Brijlal Khabri said the party is contesting on all the 17 seats of mayors, and on around 70 per cent seats of corporators.”
• Rashtriya Lok Dal spokesperson Ankur Saxena exuded confidence that the party’s candidates will perform “extremely well” in these polls.
• The districts where mayoral election will be held in the first phase are Saharanpur, Agra, Moradabad, Firozabad, Mathura, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Gorakhpur and Varanasi.
• Elaborating on security arrangements for the polls, Special DG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said that as many as 19,880 inspectors/sub-inspectors; 1,01,477 head constables/constables; 47,985 home guards; 86 companies of PAC; 35 companies of CAPF; and 7,500 under-training sub-inspectors will be posted for the first phase of the urban local bodies elections.

(With PTI inputs)

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