PrashantNews
The ruling BJP appeared to be heading for a tense tussle with the Congress in Uttarakhand where the polling for urban local bodies (ULBs) elections were held on Thursday amid allegations that a large number of names were missing from the voters’ list.
A total of 66 percent of the electorate cast their votes, an official statement said.
Former Chief Minister and Congress leader Harish Rawat has raised concerns over missing names from voters list and said his name was not found at the polling station where he had voted in the Lok Sabha elections last year.
“They are now searching for it… let’s see what happens. Election Commission officials have asked me to wait while they were checking. I should have been more alert, knowing that BJP is involved in adding and removing names from the voter list,” Rawat alleged.
The polling was held in 100 ULBs, including 11 municipal corporations, 43 municipal councils, and 46 nagar panchayats. The election will decide the fate of 5,405 candidates.
There are 72 candidates running for 11 mayoral posts, 445 for municipal council chairperson posts and 4,888 for municipal councillors’ posts.
A total of 30,29000 voters are likely to participate in the polls to be held to 100 urban local bodies spread over 1282 wards in the state, Uttarakhand State Election Commissioner Sushil Kumar said.
“We have made a humble plea before the Uttarakhand High Court to take cognizance of the matter related to the large number of missing names in the voters list in today’s elections for the urban local bodies,” said Anoop Nautiyal founder of the SDC Foundation.