The counting of votes for the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) elections held on Sunday began in the early hours of Tuesday. Led by the BJP, many party workers and supporters were caught dancing and cheering outside the counting center as the BJP staked its claim on 37 of the 44 seats.
Gujarat State Election Commission (SEC) officials said polling was peaceful without any reports of violence.
A total of 162 candidates are in the fray for 44 seats in 11 wards of GMC. Voting also took place in by-elections for three seats in two municipal corporations of Ahmedabad and Junagadh and seats in municipalities and district panchayats, which was 27.20, 47.99 and 57.08 per cent, respectively, the official said.
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The State Election Commission said that on an average 72.64 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the by-elections to the seats of taluka panchayats. The fight is triangular with AAP making a concerted effort apart from traditional rivals BJP and Congress.
These elections were held after the ruling BJP removed Vijay Rupani from the chief minister’s post and Bhupendra Patel was recently given the charge of the top seat.
Significantly, this is the third general election of GMC. The state capital was given the status of a municipal corporation in 2010-11 following an order of the Gujarat High Court. The order came on a petition filed by some concerned citizens of Gandhinagar city in September 2009. The order was passed by a division bench of then Chief Justice of Gujarat KS Radhakrishnan and Justice Akil Qureshi.
A total of 2.82 lakh voters – 1.45 lakh men and 1.36 lakh women – were expected to cast their votes in the election. The SEC had set up a total of 284 polling stations, of which 129 were marked as ‘sensitive’.
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