Voting underway for local bodies polls in Gujarat
Elections to Gujarats 81municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 talukapanchayats are being held on Sunday across 36,000 pollingbooths in the state.
Voters, including leaders from various politicalparties, arrived at the booths to cast their vote afterpolling began at 7 am.
The voting will continue till 6 pm.
A couple, scheduled to get married later in the day,arrived at a booth in Gondal taluka of Rajkot to exercisetheir franchise in the initial hours of voting, and said theydid not want to miss out on their democratic duty.
Besides, a newly-wed couple was also seen in a queueat a polling booth in Dehgam taluka of Gandhinagar.
Union Minister of State for Panchayati Raj andAgriculture Parshottam Rupala cast his vote at a booth inAmreli in the morning.
BJPs Rajya Sabha member Jugalji Thakor cast his votein Mehsana.
As per the State Election Commission (SEC), there aretotal 8,474 seats across 81 municipalities, 31 districtpanchayats and 231 taluka panchayats in the state, out ofwhich candidates on 237 seats have remained unopposed, whileno form was filled for two seats in taluka panchayats.
Thus, elections are being held in 8,235 seats, wherethe BJP has fielded 8,161 candidates, the Congress-7,778, theAam Aadmi Party-2,090, among others, said the SEC.
This time, the Asaduddin Owaisi-led All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) has also jumped into the frayfor the local body polls in Gujarat.
Bye-elections are also being held for two seats intaluka panchayats and 24 seats in municipalities.
A total of 3.04 crore voters are eligible to exercisetheir franchise for these elections.
Over 44,000 policemen, including the State ReservePolice and 12 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces(CAPF), along with 54,000 Homeguards have been deployed toensure free and fair polling.
Votes will be counted on March 2.
On February 21, polls to six municipal corporations -Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar -in the state were held. The BJP emerged victorious in allthese civic bodies.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)