Civic polls in Chhattisgarh underway

Raipur: Polling for 11 urban bodies, including one municipal corporation, four municipal councils and six nagar panchayats in Chhattisgarh, is underway, Monday, in which a total of 6,20,110 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. 

Polling is being held in Bhilai Municipal Corporation, besides four municipal councils including Jamul in Durg district, Khairagarh in Rajnandgaon, Baikunthpur and Shivpur-Charcha in Korea district. 

The six Nagar Panchayats are Maro in Bemetara, Konta in Sukma, Bhairamgarh and Bhopalpatanam in Bijapur, Narharpur in Kanker and Premnagar in Surajpur district.

The fate of 1,064 candidates will be decided by 6,20,110 voters, including 3,01,953 male and 3,18,157 female voters, who will elect one mayor, 10 presidents of municipal councils and nagar panchayats and 241 corporators.

As many as 821 polling booths have been set up where voting is being conducted through electronic voting machines (EVM), the official said.

Government officials and security personnel have been deployed in adequate numbers to ensure smooth conduct of polling process, he added.

The polling began at 7 am and will continue till 3 pm in the urban bodies situated in Naxal-infested areas including Konta, Bhairamgarh, Bhopalpattanam and Narharpur, while the remaining civic bodies will have polling from 8 am till 5 pm, he said.

The results would be announced on December 31. In the prominent Bhilai Municipal Corporation, 38 candidates for mayoral post and 394 for the post of corporators are in the fray, where a straight fight is expected between the ruling BJP and Opposition Congress. BJP has fielded its Vaishali Nagar MLA Vidyaratan Bhasin for Bhilai mayoral post who is likely to face a tough challenge from Congress' young face Devendra Yadav.

Notably, the Congress had put up a good show in the civic body elections in Chhattisgarh in 2014-15, winning four out of 10 municipal corporations while the ruling BJP was reduced to four, two less than from the last time. The two other seats were won by independent candidates, including a eunuch nominee. At that time, the elections were not held in the urban bodies, including Bhilai municipal corporation.