By Devika Bedi
Uttar Pradesh civic polls are going to be held from November 22, 2017, in three phases. They will be the first electoral testing of the popularity of Bharatiya Janata Party and the inclusion of different players. BJP had a massive victory in UP State Assembly elections earlier this year securing 312 seats out of 403. “As per the schedule, 24 districts will go to polls on 22 November, 25 districts on 26 November, and 26 districts on 29 November,” State Election Commissioner SK Agarwal told reporters. ?The results will also present an opportunity to the party for course correction in their policies and governance,? political observer and academic Manjula Upadhyay said.
Statistics concerned with the civic polls
He added that “Counting of votes polled for 16 Nagar Nigam, 118 Nagar Palika Parishad and 438 Nagar Panchayat will be done December one.? No para-military force will be employed, rather all the security management will be conducted by the Uttar Pradesh police force alone. Giving phase wise details of the civic polls, Agarwal said that 3.32 crore voters will be eligible to cast ballots at 36,269 booths and 11,389 stations. In the first phase on November 22, 230 local bodies with 11,683 polling booths employed will go to the polls, spread over 4,095 wards and have 1.09 crore voters eligible to cast their votes. Following this, in the second phase, 25 districts having 189 local bodies and 3,601 wards will be covered.? The polls will be held at 13,776 polling booths to be set up for 1.29 crore voters. The final third phase will swath 26 districts in 233 local bodies that will be spread over 4,299 wards. In this, 10,810 polling booths for over 94 lakh voters will be eligible. The results will be out on December 1 when the counting will begin.
A novel approach
These civic polls will be first of the kind test for the BJP?s Yogi Aditya Nath government. What comes as a test of turbulent waters in UP legislature, campaigning circled around subjects of demonetization and Goods and Service Tax will be employed. BJP must be careful of not leaving anything to chance. The schemes have angered traders and local businessmen and their sentiments may be fanned in these polls. After losing the deal breaker State Assemblies of Gurdaspur and Chitrakoot, these civic poll results are not in landslide favour of BJP and can change the influential image of the party in the state. According to political experts, this may be interpreted as a six-month referendum to the Yogi government. Parties including BJP, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will participate. They will contest for 653 urban local bodies including 16 municipal corporations. Winning these elections will ensure BJP gets a stamp of approval while losing it will affect their popularity for the 2019 General elections. ?Voting for local bodies is based on local issues. At the civic polls, people cast ballots. The masses will get a chance to register their disapproval of the anti-people BJP government,? Samajwadi Party MLC Rajpal Kashyap said, adding that, these polls would keep Adityanath at the hook of public attention. ?We will contest from wherever we feel we have a strong organisational base,? AAP leader Sanjay Singh said referring to why they did not contest UP Assembly elections to focus on Punjab polls.
Comments from the spokespersons
Interestingly, Samajwadi Party and Congress will be participating separately for the civic polls. SP chief said that his party would campaign by the ?bicycle? symbol, independent of urban players. SP spokesperson and MLC Sunil Singh Sajan said, ?The pre-poll electoral tie-up was for 2017 Assembly elections.? Adding, he said, ?This does not mean that it will continue for the urban local bodies? elections or 2019 Lok Sabha polls.? Similarly, Congress spokesperson Ghulam Nabi Azad reiterated that Congress will fight alone in the Urban local polls. BSP too is fighting without an alliance. Having a disintegrated opposition, BJP exudes the confidence of their win in the polls. Shalabh Mani Tripathi, a BJP spokesperson said: ?The BJP has started Vikas Party, which will disseminate information pertaining to various developmental schemes and projects of the Centre in the last three-and-half years.? He went on to say that ?It will also spread information about the developmental works undertaken and achieved in the six months of the Adityanath government in the state.??Akhilesh Yadav is sure about his win and says that their victory will not only give a message for 2019 general elections but also for 2022 Assembly elections in the state.
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