Elections to 5 Punjab MCs, 44 councils to be held on Dec 21

Elections to five municipal corporations, 44 municipal councils and by-elections to some urban civic bodies in Punjab will be held on December 21.

The counting of votes will take place the same day.

The filing of nominations will begin from Monday, said State Election Commissioner Raj Kamal Chaudhuri here on Sunday. The last date for filing the nominations is December 12. Scrutiny of nominations will be held on December 13. December 14 is the last date of withdrawal of nominations and allotment of symbols.

Unlike the recently held panchayat polls, which were held through ballot paper, the urban civic polls will be held using EVMs. The five MCs that go to the polls are Amritsar, Jalandhar, Phagwara, Ludhiana and Patiala.

With this, the model code of conduct has been imposed in the state. The expenditure limit for candidates contesting the polls has been fixed. For municipal corporations, the expenditure limit is Rs 4 lakh and for municipal Council it is between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3.6 lakh, said Chaudhari.

The election gains significance as the embattled Shiromani Akali Dal has announced its decision to contest the polls, after having stayed away from the panchayat polls held last month, becoming the fourth player in the political arena.

It is equally important for the ruling Aam Aadmi Party, which is contesting the polls under its new state president Aman Arora. The Congress, which draws its strength from urban voters, too, is expected to go all out to woo voters and try and retain its majority in the urban civic bodies, while the BJP will be testing the success of its urban voter outreach.

The result of these polls, which unlike the panchayat election, will be contested on the party symbols, will prove who the urban voters see as their political leaders.

A total of 1,609 polling locations and 3,717 polling booths have been identified by the State Election Commission. Of these, 344 are declared hypersensitive and 665 sensitive polling locations.

As many as 20,486 personnel of Punjab Police and Home Guard jawans will be deployed for these elections besides 500 patrolling parties and 283 Striking Reserves.

The total voters who will exercise their franchise in these polls is 37.32 lakh.