First phase of voting for 133 municipal corporations was held in Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday. The polling was held across 133 municipal corporations, including Indore and Bhopal, in 49 districts of Madhya Pradesh. The second phase of polling will take place on July 13, and counting of votes and results will be announced on July 17.
Of the 133 urban bodies going to polls in the first phase, voting will be held in 11 municipal corporations, 36 municipal councils and 86 city councils, State Election Commissioner Basant Pratap Singh informed on Tuesday. Among the municipal corporations that are going to polls on Wednesday are Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain, Gwalior, Khandwa, Jabalpur, Burhanpur, Chhindwara, Sagar, Singrauli and Satna.
Voting began 7 am and concluded at 5 pm. The state commission informed that a total of 13,148 polling booths have been set up for the first phase of civic polls. Out of the total booths, at least 3,296 booths have been declared as sensitive.
In the first phase, a total of 1.04 crore voters were expected to exercise their franchise.
The election commissioner had informed that EVMs would be used in the polling at all the places. He also said that white colour will be displayed in the EVMs for the post of mayor and pink for the corporator.
Similarly, yellow will be displayed for the post of the corporator in municipalities and blue colours for Nagar Parishads.
In the last election to Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), the BJP had won 55 of 85 seats, while the Congress secured 26 and independents 4 seats. Similarily, the BJP had also won the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC).