This Article is From Nov 02, 2015

Gujarat Election Commission Issues Notification for Local Body Polls

Gujarat Election Commission Issues Notification for Local Body Polls

Photo for representational purposes only.

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat State Election Commission today issued poll notification for elections to six municipal corporations, to be held on November 22.

The Commission on October 23 had announced that it will hold elections in municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar, Surat and Rajkot on November 22 while other local bodies will go to the polls on November 29.

"With this, process of accepting nominations from the candidates has started from today. The last date to file nominations is November 7," said SEC secretary MV Joshi.

To review the preparations, State Election Commissioner Varesh Sinha today held meetings with all the district collectors through video conference, said Mr Joshi.

The voters of these six corporations would have the option of e-voting. Mr Sinha held a separate meeting through video conference with elections officers of these corporations in this regard.

"Voters need to register themselves as e-voter to use this facility. To reach out to maximum number of people, the SEC today launched a mobile application for registration," he said.

This is the second time SEC is offering e-voting facility for municipal election. The option was also available in 2010.

Both BJP and Congress are now busy finalising candidates, holding marathon meetings of their respective parliamentary boards.

BJP has already decided the candidates for the six corporations.

"Today the parliamentary board finalised the candidates for local body polls in Surendranagar, Morbi, Sabarmantha, Banaskantha, Dahod and a few other districts. The meetings will continue for two more days to finalise candidates for all the local bodies," said Gujarat BJP's media convener Harshad Patel.

Congress started the candidate selection exercise yesterday and hopes to finalise all candidates before November 4.

"In two days we have finalised candidates for all the six corporations. From tomorrow our parliamentary board will start deciding the candidates for other local bodies. We will announce the final list on November 4," said Gujarat Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi.

Poll notification for other local bodies -- 31 district panchayats, 230 taluka panchayats and 56 municipalities -- will be issued on November 5.
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