Counting of Civic polls in UP on Nov 6

Lucknow, Nov 5: Counting of votes for the three-tier Urban Local Body elections, held in three phases, would be taken up from tomorrow morning.

The elections, which were marred by large scale violence in which at least two people died and over 100 were injured, took place on October 28, 31 and November 3.

State Election Commissioner(SEC) Aparmita Pratap Singh told UNI here today that the counting of votes would be held under strict supervision.

''The counting will start at 0800 hours and the results are expected in the evening'', he said. The elections were held through traditional ballot papers and SEC has ordered videography of the counting centers.

The results of the Mayors elections is expected late in the night or in the early morning of November 7.

Elaborate security arrangments have been made in all the counting centers in districts and tehsils.

All political parties are eyeing on the results of the crucial 12 nagar nigams elections, which will also elect the Mayors.

The Nagar Nigams are-Lucknow, Allahabad, Kanpur, Agra, Aligarh, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Meerut, Jhansi, Bareilly, Ghaziabad and Moradabad.

Altogether 7075 candidates are in the fray for the 980 wards for the Nagar Nigams, while 155 candidates are trying their luck for the 12 Mayoral seats.

In this local bodies poll, except for the Bahujan Samaj Party, all other major political parties have fielded their candidates in all the mayor and ward members seats. These elections are termed as a semi-final before the crucial assembly polls in the state early next year.

Elections were held for the 191 chairman posts of the Nagar Palika Parishad and 5052 ward members in 70 districts of the state.

Altogether 4,999 ward members in 410 nagar panchayats in the state would be elected in the polls, while 3015 candidates are in the fray for the 410 chairman posts of the nagar panchayat and 17171 candidates were trying their luck for the ward members of the nagar panchayat.

In the 2000 polls, BJP was the main gainer by wresting six mayors' seats out of the total 12 while BSP, SP and Congress had won one seat each. Three independents were winners in the Mayor post in the last elections.

Percentage wise BJP was on the top by notching up 18.11 per cent votes in the urban local bodies poll in year 2000 while SP received 15.30 per cent, BSP got 13.48 per cent and Congress could get only 8.63 per cent votes.

UNI