Voting in the state’s six municipal corporations – Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Surat, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar – will take place on Sunday, the results of which will be released on Tuesday. Elections to civic corporations were scheduled to take place in December last year, but were postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rs 1.14 crore voters are expected to cast their votes in 144 districts with a total of 575 seats in the six cities. This time, cities go to the polls after having expanded their geographic boundaries and thus with a larger voter base. The BJP was in power in all these municipal corporations.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who was diagnosed with Covid-19 on Monday and has been receiving treatment at the UN Mehta Hospital in Ahmedabad, will cast his vote in Rajkot, while BJP State President CR Paatil, who is a deputy from the Navsari seat, will be voting in Surat.
For the first time, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), founded by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and All Indian Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM) led by Asaduddin Owaisi, are participating in the body’s elections. local in the state.
Gujarat Surveys
This year, the BJP campaign had largely focused on the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the repeal of article 370 that granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir, and the Statue of Unity. Congress, for its part, has promised a ‘GujRight’ card in its manifesto that would give citizens access to all public services. In Vadodara, the party had caused a storm when it announced ‘dating destinations’ and cafeterias for young people, women and students to gather, and the BJP called it an “Italian mentality”, in a veiled dig at the party president. .
Last year, as the state was ‘unlocked’ during the pandemic, Congress had appointed Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) founder Hardik Patel as its acting president. Meanwhile, the BJP appointed Paatil, who has roots in Maharashtra, as its head of state.
In 2015, elections not only for municipal corporations but also for municipalities and panchayats were influenced by the quota agitation led by Hardik which saw a big turn in votes towards Congress, the impact of which was most felt in the Municipal Surat . Corporation, where the share of congressional seats rose to 36 from the 14 it had won in 2010. Twenty-six of these 36 seats were in areas dominated by Patidar.
The AAP, which appointed former PAAS member Gopal Italia as its state president, has 469 candidates in the fray of 144 districts in six cities and one from the Junagadh seat. AIMIM has 21 candidates, of whom four are ex-corporations and two are non-Muslim.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), an ally of Congress in Maharashtra, has run 28 candidates in Rajkot and 10 in Jamnagar. NCP has also presented two in the many seats that go to the polls in Junagadh.
This year, the BJP won unopposed in a seat in the Naranpura district of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation after the only opponent, Congress, withdrew its candidate.
Until 2010, each room had three seats, with one reserved for a corporate woman based on the 33 percent quota, which rose to 50 percent in 2015 and the number of seats per room rose to four.
With the elections being held in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, the State Elections Commission (SEC) has introduced some special arrangements. Voting hours were scheduled between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., while a special standard operating procedure (SOP) was also announced for Covid-19 positive patients to cast their votes. These patients, who are willing to cast their vote, can do so only between 5:00 p.m. M. And 6:00 p.m. M. While adhering to the SOP, which includes informing the concerned nodal officer and counting officer of your positive Covid-19 status 24 hours in advance and obtaining a certificate of fitness from an MBBS physician or higher. A Covid-19 patient also has to wear PPE equipment at their own expense while voting.
The SEC’s voting rules also include thermal evaluations of each voter in each booth. Wearing a mask is also required, but polling station personnel may ask a person to remove the mask to determine true identity before voting.
(With input from ENS Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot)
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