Counting of votes for the election to 84 urban local bodies, including seven municipal corporations, began on Tuesday in which the fate of 4,978 candidates would be decided.
Nearly 69% of the 23,53,923 voters exercised their franchise on November 18. To ensure peaceful counting, nearly 4,000 personnel have been deployed across 44 counting centres and an additional police force of 11,000 has also been posted.
Udham Singh Nagar has the highest number of counting tables at 226 and more than 1,000 personnel will count the votes. Dehradun follows with 166 tables and nearly 8.08 lakh voters, highest in the state.
The Dehradun Municipal Corporation has 6.28 lakh voters where three-time MLA and former Congress minister Dinesh Agarwal is in a direct fight with chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat’s close aide Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’ whom the Bharatiya Janata Party entrusted to contest mayoral seat this time.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Rajni Rawat, a transgender, also contested the mayoral election in Dehradun.
The State Election Commission has ensured the real-time availability of results and launched an application, which will provide the details of winning candidates and parties.
On polling day, voting for the post of the councillor was stopped in ward number 31 of Kashipur Municipal Corporation after the election symbols of two Independent candidates were inter-changed against their name in the ballot papers.
Independent candidate Nazmi Ansari was allotted ceiling fan as her election symbol by the SEC. Another Independent candidate from the same ward, Bilal Ahmed was allotted gas cylinder as his election symbol. The district election commissioner took action against the personnel deployed at the centre.
Chief minister Rawat is sure of the saffron party’s win in the ULB polls while Congress has been claiming that people would choose them over the BJP.
First Published: Nov 20, 2018 10:16 IST
Source: HindustanTimes