The polling for the six out of eight municipal corporations in Gujarat completed peacefully on Sunday with an average of 47 per cent voters turnout.
Apart from scattered incidents of deletion of names from voters’ lists and distribution of lollipops by the Patidar demonstrators at several polling booths, overall the first phase of a two tier elections local self-Government bodies in the State conducted in harmony.
On Sunday, fate of 1,856 candidates contesting for 568 seats from 143 wards of six municipal corporations, including Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamanagar were sealed. Of the total candidates in the fray, the BJP fielded on all 568 seats, while the Opposition Congress nominated 561 candidates. There were 351 candidates from other political parties and 374 independent. The counting of votes will be conducted on December 2.
This time turnout was 3 per cent more than the last polls of municipal corporations. In the 2010 voters’ turnout for
these six municipal corporations remained 44 per cent. However, compared to lok Sabha and Assembly elections in 2014 and 2012 respectively, turnout remained much lower as in both the previous polls it was around 70 per cent. In the first phase of local body polls nearly 95.90 lakh voters were covered.
Highest voters’ turnout registered in Rajkot (50 per cent), followed by Bhavnagar 49 per cent, Ahmedabad 47 per cent, Vadodara 47 per cent, Jamangar 47 per cent and Surat 44 per cent. Of the total 12,616 booths the State Election Commission (SEC) declared 5,271 sensitive and 2,769 booths as critically sensitive and deployed extra security forces in order to maintain law and order situation.
Top BJP leaders, including party’s national president Amit Shah, senior party leader lK Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel exercised their franchise in Ahmedabad.
Meanwhile, on Sunday afternoon Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Bharatsinh Solanki convened an urgent Press conference on deletion of names from voters’ list especially from Patel dominated areas in Ahmedabad. Solanki also made an aggressive representation to Ahmedabad collector on the issue.
Responding to the protest, the Ahmedabad collector Rajkumar Beniwal issued a circular around 3.30 pm saying that voters who were marked as deleted would be allowed to exercise their franchise. later on Solanki expressed satisfaction over the prompt action of the collector. The Congress blamed the BJP hand in the whole issue.
State BJP spokesman IK Jadeja said that the Opposition wrongly linked the issue with his party. According to Jadeja elections preparedness is the task of SEC and it works independently. Not only the Congress but the BJP too suffered due to deletion of names from voters list, he claimed.