Voting for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections saw a turnout of around 46% till 4 pm on Sunday, The Indian Express reported. However, the number is expected to close at aroudn 54%, PTI reported. Polling in two wards – Maujpur in East Delhi and Sarai Pipal in North Delhi – was postponed after the death of two candidates, PTI added.
The residents of the Capital will elect 270 members of three civic bodies – South Delhi Municipal Corporation, North Delhi Municipal Corporation and East Delhi Municipal Corporation. The local administration has deployed over 56,000 Delhi Police personnel to maintain law and order, reported NDTV.
Counting will be held on April 26.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress are in the fray. The BJP won the last two civic polls in the Capital. The Janata Dal (United), former AAP leader Yogendra Yadav’s Swaraj India, the Shiv Sena and the Bahujan Samaj Party have also fielded candidates for the Delhi civic elections.
While Yadav claimed that the Delhi civic elections would be a referendum on the Arvind Kejriwal government, the chief minister said that he wanted people to vote against dengue and chikungunya.
Kejriwal also complained about malfunctioning Electronic Voting Machines. He said that people with voters’ slips were not being allowed to exercise their franchise. Meanwhile, former Congress leader Barkha Shukla Singh took to Twitter and urged people to neither vote for the Congress, nor the AAP.
While the BJP has given tickets to new candidates this year, the Congress has lost several senior leaders to the saffron camp in the run up to the polls. The opinion polls have predicted a clear majority for the BJP, reported The Financial Express.
On Saturday, AAP chief and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said he feared the EVMs would be tampered with, reported IANS. “One, pre-2006 EVMs without security features are being used in Delhi,” he said. “Two, these EVMs have no VVPATs, and three, the EVMs are coming from Rajasthan.”
On Friday, Kejriwal had warned the voters that if the BJP were to come to power in the civic polls and their children contracted dengue in the next five years, they themselves would be responsible for it. The votes will be counted on April 26.
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