Lucknow: The notification for the crucial election to urban local bodies in the state is expected to be issued by the Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission (SEC) on October 25, 2017. The elections would probably be held in three phases. Elections would be held for 653 posts in 439 municipal boards, 198 town areas and 16 municipal corporations. In all, 1,024 corporators in the municipal corporations, 5,097 in municipal boards and 5,158 in municipal panchayats would be elected. The total number of polling booths in urban local bodies in UP is 36,339. After reviewing the security arrangements in place across the state, the State Election Commissioner (SEC), Mr S K Agarwal, told UNI here on Tuesday that the Commission was satisfied with the arrangements in all the 75 districts for conducting smooth, free and fair elections. "We are prepared for the elections and revision of electoral rolls is underway in a smooth manner. The elections in November would certainly pave the way for good percentage of voting, which was the real reason for postponing the elections from June-July to November," he pointed out. He said around 3.5 crore voters in the urban areas would be eligible for voting. Mr Agarwal stated that for the first time, the names of candidates would be posted online and over 3,500 polling booths out of the total 36,500 would go in for webcasting to ensure transparency in the polling process. He further claimed that the electoral rolls revision would be unique and better than the exercise conducted for the last Assembly elections. The draft of the rolls was published on October 9 and claims and objections on the rolls were accepted by the Election Commission till October 15. After the disposal of the claims and objections, the final rolls will be published by October 18. According to official sources here today, the state government as well as the SEC are likely to issue the notification on the same day on October 25. " The poll process which will start from October 27 will end on November 30. The nominations for the first phase would commence on October 27. The expected poll dates are November 22, 26 and 30," sources hinted. Though the state police department had suggested elections in four phases, as it was done in 2012, this time the government was not ready to stretch the elections period. Meanwhile, almost all urban local bodies have completed their term of five years and administrators have been appointed there. The BJP had swept the previous urban bodies elections in 2012, winning 11 out of 13 mayoral seats across the state. This time, it has increased to 16. Therefore, it would be the first real test for the party after winning 325 seats in the Assembly elections. UNI
