ULB election nominations begin, DEO inspects venues

VARANASI: No candidate from any prominent political parties turned up to file papers on the inaugural day of the nominations for urban local bodies election on Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the district election officer/district magistrate S Rajalingam took stock of the arrangements at all the venues of filing nomination.
Venues for filing nomination by the candidates of corporators election for Varanasi Municipal Corporation have been created at its zonal offices. The DEO reached the Adampur, Dashaswamedh, trans-Varuna and Bhelupur venue to inspect the arrangements. On noticing crowd inside tran-Varuna zonal office, he sought reason for it from the returning officer and the police officials deployed there. He also directed to barricade areas in Bhelupur zonal office to create separate passage for candidates to reach nomination venue.
During DEO’s inspection of Adampur and Dashaswamedh zonal offices many officials and employees deployed for election duty were found absent. Taking a serious note of it, he directed the deputy-DEO to file FIRs against the absentees and also to deduct their salary of a day. He also checked the CCTV footages of the nomination venue and asked to ensure fix a clock in front of cameras.
Deputy-DEO (ULB) Ranvijay Singh said that all the nomination offices for the VMC and Gangapur Nagar Panchayat election had been operationalised at 11am and were opened till 3pm on Tuesday. The process of filing nomination will continue till April 17, he added.
Venue for the candidates for mayor election to file their papers has been set at the ADM (administration) court in collectorate premises, he said adding, nomination of candidate for corportaor election in trans-Varuna, Adampur, Dashaswamedh and Bhelupur is taking place at zonal offices while venue of nomination filing in Kotwali zone is at Town Hall.
Filing of nomination by candidates for Gangapur Nagar Panchayat’s chairman and members election also started at Rajatalab tehsil headquarters office.
Scrutiny of paper will take place on April 18 while withdrawal of paper by any candidate will take place on April 20, he said adding the symbol distribution with the release of final list of candidates will take place on April 21. Voting is scheduled on May 4 followed by counting of votes on May 13, he added.