Uttar Pradesh: Preparations complete for the first phase of civic elections

Lucknow (IANS) | All preparations have been completed for the first phase of urban body elections in Uttar Pradesh on Thursday amid tight security arrangements. According to the State Election Commission (SEC), people in 37 districts will vote in the first phase to elect 7,593 representatives, including 10 mayors and 820 corporators. The second phase of polling will be held on May 11. The two-phase polls will be a crucial test for the parties ahead of the Lok Sabha elections next year.
Over 2.40 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the first round of polling, officials said. All the posts are being contested on the symbol of the party.
In the first phase, polling will be held for the posts of 103 Nagar Palika Parishad presidents and 2,740 Nagar Palika Parishad members. Besides this, the voters of the first phase will also decide the fate of 275 Nagar Panchayat presidents and 3,645 Nagar Panchayat members.
A total of 44,232 candidates are in the fray in the first round. State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar informed that 85 representatives including 10 councilors have already been elected unopposed. The districts where the mayor will be elected in the first phase include Saharanpur, Agra, Moradabad, Firozabad, Mathura, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Gorakhpur and Varanasi. The counting of votes for both the phases will take place on May 13.
During the first phase, two lakh personnel in uniform including 35 companies of Central Armed Police Forces and 86 companies of PAC have been deployed for security arrangements. Senior police officials said 19,880 inspectors, 1.01 lakh head constables, 47,985 home guards and 7,500 trainee sub-inspectors would also be part of the security set-up.
Special Director General of Police (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said that so far 1,101 people have been booked under the Gangster Act to ensure peaceful polling, while the NSA has been slapped on another 14 who are already in jail and Want bail before voting.
He said, 2,012 miscreants have been pulled out from different districts of the state. Similarly, 6.48 lakh other people have been booked for breach of peace in the last 15 days.
The Special DG said that as part of the exercise, 42 illegal factories manufacturing country-made pistols were busted, in which 2,958 arms and 4,500 cartridges were recovered. Similarly, a low intensity explosive weighing 3,470 kg was seized.
Police also arrested 987 persons smuggling drugs worth Rs 37 crore, while 2.99 lakh liters of illicit liquor was seized and 766 persons were booked for making/smuggling illicit liquor. The police official said that 8.19 lakh vehicles were found flouting the rules, while another 7,426 vehicles were seized in violation of the election code of conduct across the state. Patrolling has been intensified near the polling stations and also in the districts where polling will be held on Thursday, he said.