ULB Polls: Prep complete, votes to be counted today

VARANASI: The fate of 11 mayoral and 6,363 corporator candidates in Kashi's 100 wards will be decided on Saturday.
The local administration has made all preparations for the counting of votes of the urban local body elections at the Pahadia Mandi and Rajatalab tehsil amid tight security bandobast. The polling was held on May 4.
Election observer Subhash Chand Sharma inspected the counting venue at Pahadia Mandi late evening on Thursday.
During the inspection, additional district magistrate (administration)/deputy district election officer Ran Vijay Singh and other officers were present with him.
Singh said that the counting of the votes of ULB polls for Varanasi Municipal Corporation will be held in the two halls of the Pahadia Mandi, while the counting of votes of ULB polls for Gangapur Nagar Panchayat will take place at the meeting hall of Rajatalab tehsil headquarters.
According to him, the halls 2 and 3 have been reserved for the counting of the votes of ULB polls for Varanasi Municipal Corporation.
The counting of votes for mayor will take place at 50 tables while for the counting of votes of election for corporators of 100 wards will take place at one table for two wards.
The candidates for corporator election will be allowed to send one counting agent. The mayoral candidates can deploy their one agent at each of 50 counting tables. The details of zone wise wards will be displayed on the boards outside the halls.
He said that the counting agents will enter through Awas Vikas Colony gate of Pahadia Mandi.
They will not be allowed to carry any liquid. mobile phone, laptop or tab inside the counting venue. No candidate will be allowed to carry out victory procession in view of prohibitory orders promulgated in the district.
Among over 16 lakh voters, around 40.42% voters' turnout was witnessed for urban local bodies election for Varanasi Municipal Corporation on May 4, when the voters had sealed the fate of 11 mayoral candidates and 6,363 corporator candidates in 100 wards.
The mayoral candidates include Bhartiya Janata Party's Ashok Tiwari, Congress' Anil Srivastava, Samajwadi Party's Om Prakash Singh, Bahujan Samaj Party's Subhash Chandra Majhi, Aam Aadmi Party's Sharda Tandon, Apna Dal (Kameravadi) candidate Harish Mishra and Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party's Anand Tiwari, Independent candidates Omprakash Chaurasia, Deepak Lal Asthana, Virendra Kumar Gupta and Ramji Chaurasia and National Samaj Party's Shamsher Khan.