U.P votes for the Civic Polls, direct contest between BJP, SP
Lucknow: At seven in the morning on Thursday, voting for the first round of urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh began. A high-octane campaign is being led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and opposition Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav in what is being considered as the state’s last test before the 2024 parliamentary elections.
The battle is between the BJP and Akhilesh Yadav’s SP since key figures from the Congress and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) have stayed away from the election campaign. Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal are also contestants.
The State Election Commission reports that on Thursday, voters in 37 districts will cast ballots in the first round of voting to choose 7,593 members, including 10 mayors and 820 corporators.
All districts will hold voting from 7 am to 6 pm.
According to authorities, more than 2.40 crore people are eligible to cast a ballot in the first round of voting, and they also noted that all the positions are being competed for using party emblems.
2,740 nagar palika parishad members and 103 nagar palika parishad chairs will be elected in the first round of voting.
In addition, 3,645 nagar panchayat members and 275 nagar panchayat chairpersons will be chosen by voters in the first phase.
In all, 44,232 applicants are competing in the first round.
SEC representatives said that 85 lawmakers, including 10 corporators, had already been chosen without opposition.
On May 11, there will be voting for the second round of voting. On May 13, the votes from both stages will be tallied.
Latest Updates for UP Urban Body Polls in 2023:
Rajnath Singh, the defence minister, voted in Lucknow and encouraged everyone else to do the same for the 2023 municipal elections in Uttar Pradesh.
According to Mayawati, the BSP is waging this election on its own, without the assistance of any other parties. “We are optimistic that our event will be well received and that we will see progress. In this election, I want every resident of the state to vote, she said.
Mayawati, the leader of the BSP, voted.
Sudhanshu Trivedi, a BJP leader, votes in Lucknow’s ward 267 at Sherwood Academy.
Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister, voted in old Gorakhpur’s ward 78 at booth number 797.
Adityanath referred to the election as a “Dev-Asur Sangram” (war between deities and devils) on the last day of campaigning.
Mayawati, the leader of the BSP, abstained from the election and on Tuesday urged people to support her party in tweets.
Brijlal Khabri, the leader of the Uttar Pradesh Congress, said that the party is running for all 17 of the mayors’ seats as well as almost 70% of the corporator seats.
Ankur Saxena, a spokesman for the Rashtriya Lok Dal, expressed confidence that the party’s candidates would do “extremely well” in these elections.
Saharanpur, Agra, Moradabad, Firozabad, Mathura, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi are the districts where the mayoral election will take place in the first round.
A total of 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 sub-inspectors who are still in training will be posted for the first phase of the urban local bodies elections, according to Special DG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar.
