Campaigning for Gujarat local body polls ends today

The polls to the six municipal corporations in Gujarat's Ahmedabad will be held on February 21, while the elections to 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka panchayats will be conducted on February 28. Meanwhile, as per the EC's guidelines, election campaignings have been ended at 5 PM on Friday.

Gandhinagar: Elections to six municipal corporations in Gujarat will take place on February 21 and to 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka panchayats on February 28.

Polling for elections to Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar municipal corporation is to take place on February 21 and for which, campaignings have been ended at 5 PM on Friday.

Polling for the municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Jamnagar, Rajkot and Bhavnagar will be held on February 21 in which 2276 candidates are in fray contesting from 144 wards.

Along with this, there are nine candidates contesting the by-election for two wards of Junagadh municipal corporation. In Junagadh, 14 persons had filed their nomination papers but the nomination papers of three persons were rejected while those of 11 persons were held valid. In Ahmedabad, one candidate was declared elected unopposed. In the state, as many as 92 candidates have withdrawn their nomination papers.

Which political parties in the election fray?

There are ten political parties who have fielded their candidates in the elections to six municipal corporations. Prominent among them are the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Indian National Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) who are in the direct contest on many seats. Among other political parties contesting the polls are Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Communist Party of India (CPI), Samajwadi Party (SP), Janata Dal-Secular (JDS) and the first time entrant in Gujarat, All India Majlis-E-Ittehul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) and independent candidates.

How many seats and how many candidates in 6 corporations?

There are 2274 candidates on 576 seats of six municipal corporations where polling will take place on February 21 (Sunday). They include 575 of BJP, 564 of Congress, 468 of Aam Aadmi Party, 167 of BSP, 89 of NCP and 155 of other political parties and 225 independents, totalling 2274 candidates.

How many wards, seats, candidates in which corporation

Ahmedabad	48 wards	192 seats	773 candidates
Surat	30 wards	120 seats	484 candidates
Vadodara	19 wards	76 seats	279 candidates
Jamnagar	16 wards	64 seats	236 candidates
Rajkot	18 wards	72 seats	293 candidates
Bhavnagar	13 wards	52 seats	211 candidates

Number of voters in corporations

Name of Corporation	Male	Female	Transgender	Total
Ahmedabad	24,14,451	22,09,976	165	46,24,592
Rajkot	5,67,002	5,26,984	19	10,94,005
Jamnagar	2,50,502	2,38,937	12	4,89,451
Bhavnagar	2,70,501	2,54,225	29	5,24,755
Vadodara	7,40,898	7,05,110	204	14,46,212
Surat	18,17,186	14,71,047	110	32,88,343

A total of 1.14 crore voters can exercise their franchise

Polls in six municipal corporations will be held on February 21 and counting of votes will take place on February 23. Polls will take place in the 81 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and 231 taluka panchayats on February 28 and results will be declared on March 2," Gujarat Election Commissioner Sanjay Prasad said.

The last date to file nominations for the municipal corporation elections will be February 6, while it will be February 13 for the other set of polls, he said at a press conference here, adding that the model code of conduct had come into force immediately.

These polls were to be held in October-November last year but were pushed back due to the coronavirus outbreak, and Prasad reiterated it would be conducted with strict adherence to all health protocols in place.

He said standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the polls will be declared soon, and five meetings on this issue had been held so far with the state health department.

EVMs will be used for the polls, of which the SEC has adequate numbers, but the VVPAT mechanism will not be deployed, Prasad informed.

As many as nine video conferences of district collectors have been conducted about local self-government body elections. An additional 3,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have been asked from the Election Commission.

There are 11,477 polling stations in all the municipal commissions of which 3851 polling stations have been identified as sensitive and 1656 polling stations as very sensitive. In all 13,946 EVMs will be used.