Ranchi: It was a hectic Sunday for the entire civil and police administration in state, making last minute preparations for the Urban Local Body (ULB) elections that will begin at 7am on Monday. Poll parties were despatched to their stations from each of the 24 district headquarters by Sunday.
A large number of ballot and control units are being used in the elections in the wake of 4,591 candidates contesting in the elections for the 34 posts of mayor and chairperson, 34 posts of deputy mayor or vice-chairperson and 724 posts of ward councillors. Polls are not occurring for 25 posts of ward councillors in different districts as one candidate in each one of them have been declared elected unopposed.
While there are some wards where only two candidates are in the fray there are also such wards where the state election commission has been compelled to use more than one ballot unit in the wake of the fact that one ballot unit can accommodate names of only 16 candidates. “Each of the booth would have three ballot units white coloured for the ward councillors election, green coloured for the deputy mayor or vice-chairperson and pink coloured for electing the mayor or chairperson,” said an official of state election commission.