The UP State Election commission announced poll schedule for the three tier urban local body’s polls here on Friday. The polling will be held in three phases on November 22, November 26 and November 29. The counting of votes for all the urban local bodies will be held on December 1 from 8 am in the morning at the district headquarters.
The polling for total 652 urban local bodies which includes 16 Nagar Nigam, 198 Nagar Palika and 438 Nagar panchyats would be held in three phases. However election for the Bharwari nagar Palika in Kaushambi district would not be held with these elections. Recently Bharwari nagar panchayat had been upgraded to nagar Palika by the Yogi Adityanath government.
The 16 Municipal Corporation are lucknow, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Allahabad, Jhansi, Kanpur Nagar, Faizabad, Agra, Aligarh, Bareilly, Moradabad, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Saharanpur, Mathura and Firozabad.
The State election commissioner (SEC) S K Agarwal announcing the poll schedule said with the issue of the poll notification the model code of conduct has come into force with immediate effect. He said with the announcement of the poll schedule the transfer, promotion of the officers/ employees and appointments in all the government departments related with the elections have been banned . The departments are revenue, police and urban development department.
The SEC said till the completion of the elections the district magistrates and the district police chiefs have been directed to not to leave their place of posting. The district officers have also been restrained from proceeding on leave and the poll panel has also asked the government to not to relieve any officers posted in the district for attending the training programme.
He said that no Central forces would be deployed in the elections and only state police would be engaged for the polls. Around 3,700 booths have been identified as hyper sensitive where videography, CCTV cameras and live cloud webcasting would be done for free and fair polls.
The nominations for the first phase of polling would commence from Saturday October 28 and the last date of filing of papers would be November 6. Scrutiny of papers would be done on the next day while candidates can withdraw their nominations till November nine.
Nominations for the second phase will commence from October 31 and candidates can file their nominations till November 7. Scrutiny would be done on November 8 and last date of withdrawal of papers in November 10. The nominations for the third and last phase will commence from November 3 and last date of filing of nominations is November 10. Scrutiny would be done on November 11 while last date of withdrawals in November 13.
The 24 districts going to polls in the first phase on November 22 are Shamli, Meerut, Hapur, Bijnore, Badaun, Hatras, Kasganj, Agra, Kanpur , Jalaun, Hamirpur, Chatrakoot, Kaushambi, Pratapgarh, Unnao, Hardoi, Amethi, Fauzabad, Gonda, Basti, Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, Ghazipur and Sonebhadra.
In the second phase polls on November 26, voting would be held in the 25 districts— Muzaffarnagar, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Amroha, Rampur, Pilibhit, Shahjahanpur, Aligarh, Mathura, Mainpuri, Farrukhabad, Etawah, lalitpur, Banda, Allahabad, lucknow, Sultanpur, Ambedkarnagar, Bahriach, Shravasti, Sant Kabirnagar, Deoria, Ballia, Varanasi and Bhadoi.
The last phase polls on November 29 would be held in 26 districts of Saharanpur, Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Moradabad, Sambhal, Bareilly, Etah, Ferozabad, Kannauj, Auriyya, and Kanpur nagar, Jhansi, Mahoba, Fatehpur, Rae Bareli, Sitapur, lakhimpur Kheri, Barabanki, Balrampur, Sidharthnagar, Maharajganj, Kushinagar, Mau, Chandauli, Jaunpur and Mirzapur.
The total number of wards in 16 nagar nigam is 1,300, nagar palika 5,261 and nagar panchyats 5,434. There are total 3.32 crore voters who are expected to exercise their franchise in 11,389 polling stations and 36,269 polling booths across the state. Among the elector the share of males is 53.5 percent and females are 46.5 percent. For the elections in municipal corporations the electronic voting machines (EVMs) will be used while in nagar palika parishad and nagar panchyats, the polling will be held with the traditional ballot papers. The EP (elector-population) ratio for the local body polls is 67.88 percent.
He said the candidates can get their mobile number registered on the website of the commission. The commission during the elections will send them all the necessary information through SMS during the elections.
The state election commission this has increased the poll expenditure of candidates in the elections after a decade with limit of mayor candidate has been hiked to Rs 25 lakh from Rs 12.50 lakh where the nagar Nigams have more than 80 wards while rest Mayors can spend up to Rs 20 lakhs. The expenditure limit of nagar Nigam corporators has also been hiked to Rs two lakhs from Rs One lakh. Similarly the expenditure limit of other posts too has increased.