Almost a month-long poll campaigning for the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) came to an end on Thursday evening at 5 pm. As many as 473 candidates are trying their luck for the new city Government polling for which is scheduled for January 31 to elect a mayor and 85 corporators. Counting of votes would start in the morning of February 4 and by noon the results would be declared and the State Capital would get a new city government.
It would be probably for the first time in the history of BMC elections that the electorate would come across three Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to cast their vote for a mayor and a corporator. Of the three EVMs that the voter would come across two would be for the mayor candidates while one would be for the corporator. There would be two EVMs for the mayor because there are 17 contestants in the field while the capacity of the EVM is to handle only 15 candidates.
Of the 473 candidates trying their luck in the BMC 17 are in the fray for the post of mayor while 456 candidates would go for the post of corporators from 85 wards of the BMC. Though the voting through postal ballot for the government employees and officials is on and till the filing of this report, over 6,000 postal ballots have been cast. The postal ballots would be accepted till February 3 and it is expected that about eight thousand postal votes would be cast by then.
This would also be the first occasion when the electorate of the BMC would have the option of rejecting all the candidates from their respective wards and for mayor by opting for the None Of The Above (NOTA) option if they think that no candidates could do any better for them.