Amid tight security arrangements, polling for the first phase of urban local bodies elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held on Thursday.
According to the State Election Commission (SEC), in the first phase of the elections, the electorate in 37 districts will vote to elect 7,593 representatives of the urban local bodies, including 10 mayors and 820 corporators.
Urban local bodies elections are the first major electoral contest in Uttar Pradesh under Yogi Adityanath government 2.0, which was voted back to power in March 2022 state assembly elections.
The second phase polling will take place on May 11.
The two-phase urban local bodies elections will be a key test for the parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. More than 2.40 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the first phase of polling on Thursday, according to officials.
In the first phase, polling will be held for posts of 103 nagar palika parishad chairpersons and 2,740 nagar palika parishad members. Apart from this, the voters in the first phase will also decide the fate of 275 nagar panchayat chairpersons and 3,645 nagar panchayat members.
Altogether 44,232 candidates are in the fray in the first phase of polls.
State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar said that 85 representatives, including 10 corporators, had already been elected unopposed.
The districts where mayoral elections will be held in the first phase include Saharanpur, Agra, Moradabad, Firozabad, Mathura-Vrindavan, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Gorakhpur and Varanasi.
For security arrangements during the first phase, two lakh men in uniform comprising 35 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces and 86 companies of Provincial Armed Constabulary have been deployed.
Sources in the State Election Commission said as many as 19,880 inspectors, 1 01 lakh head constables, 47,985 home guards and 7,500 trainee sub-inspectors would also be part of the security paraphernalia.
Special DG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said to ensure peaceful polling, so far 1,101 persons had been booked under the Gangsters Act while National Security Act had been slapped on another 14 who were already in jail and wanted bail ahead of the polling.
"Another 2,012 troublemakers have been externed from different districts in the state. Likewise, 6.48 lakh others have been booked for breach of peace in the last 15 days," he said.
Prashant Kumar said that as part of the exercise, 42 illegal factories making country-made pistols were busted and 2,958 arms and 4,500 cartridges were recovered from there. Similarly, he said, low intensity explosives weighing 3,470 kg were seized.
Police also arrested 987 persons smuggling drugs worth Rs 37 crore, while 2.99 lakh litres of illicit liquor was seized and 766 booked for manufacturing or smuggling illicit liquor.
The police officer added that 8.19 lakh vehicles flouting rules had been booked while 7,426 others were seized for violation of poll code across the state. "Patrolling has been intensified near the polling centres and also in the districts going to polls on Thursday," he said.