Updates on UP Urban Body Polls 2023: The first phase of urban local body elections in Uttar Pradesh began at 7 a.m. on Thursday. The election is being viewed as the state’s penultimate test before the 2024 parliamentary elections, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and opposition Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav running a high-octane campaign.

With prominent leaders of the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) abstaining from campaigning, the battle is between the BJP and Akhilesh Yadav’s SP. The Rashtriya Lok Dal and Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are also running.

The State Election Commission reports that voters in 37 districts will go to the polls on Thursday to elect 7,593 members, including 10 mayors and 820 corporators.

All districts will hold voting from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

According to officials, more than 2.40 crore voters are eligible to vote in the first round of voting, and all positions are being fought on party emblems.

Polling will take place in the first phase for 103 nagar palika parishad chairpersons and 2,740 nagar palika parishad members.

Aside from that, voters will decide the fate of 275 nagar panchayat chairpersons and 3,645 nagar panchayat members in the first phase.

In total, 44,232 candidates are competing in the first round.

According to SEC authorities, 85 delegates, including 10 corporators, were elected unopposed.

The second phase of voting will take place on May 11. The votes for both stages will be counted on May 13.

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UP Urban Body Elections 2023 Latest News:

Sudhanshu Trivedi, a BJP politician, votes in Lucknow’s ward number-267 at Sherwood Academy.

Yogi Adityanath voted in old Gorakhpur at booth number 797 in ward number 78.

On the last day of campaigning, Adityanath had termed the polls as “Dev-Asur Sangram (battle between deities and demons).”

BSP chief Mayawati stayed away from the campaign and on Tuesday issued an appeal through tweets to the people to vote for her party.

Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Brijlal Khabri said the party is contesting on all the 17 seats of mayors, and on around 70 per cent of seats of corporators.”

Rashtriya Lok Dal spokesperson Ankur Saxena exuded confidence that the party’s candidates will perform “extremely well” in these polls.

The districts where mayoral election will be held in the first phase are Saharanpur, Agra, Moradabad, Firozabad, Mathura, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi.

Elaborating on security arrangements for the polls, Special DG (Law and Order) Prashant Kumar said that as many as 19,880 inspectors/sub-inspectors; 1,01,477 head constables/constables; 47,985 home guards; 86 companies of PAC; 35 companies of CAPF; and 7,500 under-training sub-inspectors will be posted for the first phase of the urban local bodies elections.

With PTI Inputs