LUCKNOW: With four days to go before civic body polls begin, the Bharatiya Udhyog Vyapar Mandal, a body representing a large number of traders across Uttar Pradesh, on Sunday said it will support BJP. Ravikant Garg, the president of the traders’ body, told reporters here that they were betting on the BJP in hope of better law and order, which is necessary for the businesses to flourish.
”The exploitation of traders which used to happen in the earlier regimes of the SP and BSP, and the poor law and order, has now become a thing of the past. Now, a businessman is actually able to carry out business/trade with freedom,” he said. Garg said the changed scenario has helped street vendors greatly who used to be harassed by the municipal officials earlier.
The urban local bodies’ elections are slated to take place in two phases on May 4 and May 11. The counting of votes will be held on May 13. According to the State Election Commission, more than 4.32 crore people are enrolled as voters in the civic polls this year, as against 3.35 crore in the 2017 elections.
State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar, while notifying the polls earlier, had said that voting through EVMs will take place on 17 mayoral seats and 1,420 seats for corporator. Ballot papers will be used for 199 seats for nagar palika parishad chairpersons, 5,327 seats for nagar palika parishad members, 544 seats for nagar panchayat chairpersons, and 7,178 seats for nagar panchayat members. The polls will be held for a total of 14,684 posts in 760 urban local bodies of the state, Kumar had said.
As per the final list, the mayor’s seat in Agra has been reserved for SC (female) and Jhansi for any SC candidate.
Shahjahanpur and Firozabad are reserved for OBC (female) and Saharanpur and Meerut for any OBC candidate. Lucknow, Kanpur, and Ghaziabad are reserved for female candidates.
The eight mayoral seats of Varanasi, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Bareilly, Moradabad, Gorakhpur, Ayodhya, and Mathura-Vrindavan will be unreserved, the government said.
Source: Press Trust of India
