UP urban local boy polls: Counting of votes begins amid tight security

The counting of votes for the urban local body (ULB) polls in Uttar Pradesh began for all the 760 ULBs at 353 centres at 8am on Saturday amid tight security.

The State Election Commission (SEC) has prohibited victory processions after the counting. “We have taken all possible steps for peaceful and transparent counting of votes,” said State Election Commissioner, Manoj Kumar.

The results for the posts of mayors and corporators in all the 17 nagar nigams (municipal corporations), where the voting was held through EVMs, are expected by afternoon while the final results for nagar palika parishads (small cities) and nagar panchayats (semi-urban towns), where the voting was held by traditional ballot paper, may be known only on Sunday.

The voting for the civic polls was held in two phases on May 4 and 11 amid a lower voter turnout with only 52% of the 4.32 crore eligible voters having exercised their franchise.

According to the SEC data, over 83,000 candidates were in the fray for 14,684 posts of mayors, corporators, nagar palika chairpersons, members and nagar panchayat chairpersons and members in 760 ULBs that include 17 nagar nigams, 199 nagar palika parishads and 544 nagar panchayats.

More than 55,600 of the total contestants in the fray were independents who accounted for close to 67% of the total strength of candidates.

The BJP fielded 10,758 candidates (including 4,248 women), the highest among all the parties. The Samajwadi Party (SP) fielded the second highest number of candidates – 5,231 (2,223 women), followed by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)’s 3,787 (1,611 women). The Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) fielded 2,994 (1,395 women) and 2,447 (1,031 women) candidates, respectively.

More than 46% of the candidates fielded by the Congress were women and was higher than that of all other main political players. Among the BJP candidates, 39.48% were women, which is lower than that of the BSP (42.54%), the SP (42.49%) and AAP (42%).

As many as 35,102 female candidates fought for various posts and their share in the total number of contestants came to above 42%, which was far more than the minimum 33% reservation provided to women under the Constitution.

In 2017 ULB polls, the ruling BJP won 14 of the 16 mayoral seats. The two seats- Aliagrh and Meerut- went to the BSP while the SP and the Congress drew a blank.

This time there are 17 mayoral posts since Shahjhanpur, the home town and assembly constituency of UP finance minister Suresh Khanna, was elevated to the status of a municipal corporation from a nagar palika parishad in 2018.

The BJP had also won 596 corporators seats, followed by SP’s 202, BSP’s 147 and Congress’s 110.

In nagar palika parishads in 2017, the BJP won 70 chairmen seats and 923 members seats while the SP pocketed 45 chairmen seats and 477 members seats. The BSP won 29 chairmen seats and 262 members seats while the Congress won nine chairmen seats and 158 members seats.

The BJP dominated nagar panchayats too by emerging victorious on 100 posts of chairmen and 664 members posts. The SP won 83 chairmen seats and 453 members seats followed by the BSP’s 45 and 218 seats, respectively. The Congress managed win on 17 chairmen seats and 126 members seats.