Campaigning for the third and last phase of Urban Local Bodies poll in 26 districts of Uttar Pradesh ended on Monday evening where polling will be held on November 29.
In the last phase, 4,299 wards will go to polls in 233 local bodies including five Municipal Corporations where new Mayors would be elected. The five Corporations are Saharanpur, Moradabad, Bareilly, Ferozabad and Jhansi.
Saharanpur and Ferozabad would witness Municipal Corporation elections for the first time. In Jhansi, former Union minister and Congress candidate Pradeep Jain Aditya’s candidature for Mayor’s post has rendered the contest tough for the ruling BJP.
Polling would be held from 7.30 am 5 pm amid tight security with more than 80,000 security personnel, including 40 companies of Central Para-Military Forces deployed for ensuring law and order.
As per State Election Commission (SEC), there are 74 candidates in the frayfor five Mayoral posts and 914 candidates contesting for Chairperson’s post in 51 Nagar Palika Parishad and 1711 candidates for Chairperson's post in Nagar Panchyats. Counting of votes for all three phases will be done on December 1 and the results are expected to be declared the same day.
Districts going to polls in the last phase are Saharanpur, Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Moradabad, Sambhal, Bareilly, Etah, Ferozabad, Kannauj, Auraiyya, Kanpur Dehat, Jhansi, Mahoba, Fatehpur, Rae Bareli, Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Barabanki, Balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Mau, Chandauli, Jaunpur and Mirzapur.
The SEC received complaints from all corners in Lucknow about missing names from the rolls. Former Union minister Kalraj Mishra, cabinet minister Rita Bahuguna Joshi and DGP Sulkhan Singh were among the VIPs who could not cast their vote as their names were missing from the electoral rolls.
Taking serious note of large number of voters's name missing from the electoral rolls in Lucknow, the State Election Commission has issued notice to the Lucknow District Magistrate Kaushal Raj Sharma to explain. Subsequently, the District Magistrate suspended three Booth Level Officers (BLO).
The BLOs are responsible for door-to-door verification of voters and addition and deletion of voters names from the electoral rolls.
Polling for Lucknow Muncipal Corporation was held in the second phase on Sunday where a dismal 37.57 per cent polling was recorded.
State Election Commissioner SK Agarwal said in Lucknow on Monday that ahead of the elections, the poll panel had undertaken massive exercise for revision of rolls and as many as 94 lakh new names were added while 80 lakh names were deleted. He said that Lucknow District Magistrate has been asked to pull up subordinate staff as lapses have come to notice in distribution of voters slips by the BLOs.