Gandhinagar: Polling for regular election of six municipal corporations of Gujarat – Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Bhavnagar and two-seat by-polls in Junagadh Municipal Corporation will take place on Sunday, February 21 during 7 am to 6 pm.

Regular election of six municipal corporations will involve 144 wards, 575 seats, 11,121 polling booths including 2,255 sensitive and 1,188 very sensitive booths.

Total 1.14 crore voters including 60,60,435 men and 54,06,538 women will cast votes in regular elections across six municipal corporations.

51 election officers and 57 assistant election officers will be on duty along with 63,209 polling staff. As many as 32,263 police men will be on duty to maintain law and order.

There are total 2,276 candidates in fray for 575 seats. Of them 577 are from BJP, 566 from Congress, 91 from NCP, 470 are from AAP, 353 are from other parties and 228 are independent. One seat of Amdavad Municipal Corporation has been won unopposed.

All six municipal corporations were previously under Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The election is taking place after over five years period due to Covid-19 pandemic situation.

Lack of enthusiasm about the local bodies poll among people made the overall campaign lackluster and dull.

Overall voting across six cities in year 2015 civic elections had been 45.53% which was nearly matching to the average turnout witnessed in last two civic polls that took place in year 2005 and 2010. It has to be seen that in pandemic situation, how much voting is going to take place this time. It’s worth noting that two extra hours have been added to polling schedule compared to previous elections. While in 2015, polling hours were 8 am to 5 pm, this time around the schedule is 7 am to 6 pm.

Counting of votes will take place on February 23. The second phase of local polls on February 28 will involve polling for municipalities, district panchayats and taluka panchayats. Counting for the second phase elections will take place on 2nd March. DeshGujarat