AMN / LUCKNOW
Voting for the first phase of three phased Urban Local Bodies elections in UP passed off peacefully today. There wer no reports of any untoward incident from any poll-bound 230 local bodies spread over 24 districts. It started from 0730 in the morning and concluded at 0500 evening. Elaborate security was in place.
A total of 26 thousand 356 candidates including 10,317 women were in the fray. Eleven thousand six hundred eighty-three polling booths were set up for about one crore 10 Lakhs electorates.
At some places voting was disrupted due to technical snags in EVMs. People also protested at several places on missing of their names from voters’ lists.
Inter-state and inter-district borders were sealed and patrolling by security forces intensified. The holiday was announced in poll-bound districts. Drone cameras were used at hypersensitive polling stations and webcasting of voting was done in 10 percent polling booths.
Elaborate Observers were deputed to keep an eye on the poll process. Municipal corporations of Meerut, Agra, Kanpur, Faizabad and Gorakhpur, 71 Nagar Palika Parishad and 154 Nagar Panchayats went to poll under this phase.
All major political parties of the state including ruling BJP, main opposition Samajwadi Party, BSP and Congress fielded their nominees for the polls.
Counting of votes will be held on December 1. The second and third phase of voting will be held on November 26 and 29 respectively.