Counting of civic polls in UP begins

Lucknow, Nov 6 (UNI) Counting of votes for the three-tier Urban Local Body elections in Uttar Pradesh, held in three phases, started this morning at 0800 hrs today, amid tight security arrangements.

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 the counting of votes has started under strict supervision.

''The counting has started at 0800 hrs 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.

Actual counting of votes would take some time as in the first two-three hours, the entire ballot in the ward level would be mixed and bundles will be made.

The results of the Mayors elections is expected late in the night or in the early tomorrow.

Elaborate security arrangments have been made in all the counting centers in districts and tehsils. Central forces has been deployed in most of the centers where counting of votes for the Mayor elections would be taken up.

All political parties are eyeing 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 7,075 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 189 chairman posts of the Nagar Palika Parishad and 5052 ward members in 70 districts of the state.

Altogether 4,999 ward members in 418 Nagar Panchayats in the state would be elected in the polls, while 3015 candidates are in the fray for the 410 chairman posts 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 MB PA DS1130