Raipur: Polls to 10 municipal corporations, 49 municipal councils and 114 Nagar Panchayats in Chhattisgarh are being held on Tuesday, with the main contest being between the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress.
Voting for bypolls to five wards in Sukma and Durg civic bodies is also being conducted alongside, an official said.
“Polling will be held from 8am to 5pm through EVMs. Over 10,000 candidates are contesting the polls. Their fate will decided by 44,90,360 voters, comprising 22,08,625 men, 22,81,226 women and 509 third gender persons. A total of 5,970 polling stations have been set up. Of these, 1,531 have been categorized as sensitive, 132 as hyper sensitive. Twenty polling booths have been set up for bypolls,” he said.
The chairperson of Basna Nagar Panchayat and 32 corporators in different municipal bodies have been elected unopposed, the official said, adding counting of votes will take place on February 15.
The Raipur municipal corporation will see a contest between BJP’s Meenal Choubey and Congress’ Dipti Dubey for the post of mayor. Dipti Dubey is the wife of former mayor Pramod Dubey.
In Rajnandgaon municipal corporation, the BJP has fielded former MP Madhusudan Yadav against Congress’ Nikhil Dwivedi for the post of mayor. The Ambikapur municipal corporation will see a fight between Congress’ Dr Ajay Tirkey and BJP’s Manjusha Bhagat for the post of mayor.
Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai led the campaign for the BJP seeking votes for a “triple-engine” government (BJP rule at Centre, state and local bodies, while the Congress campaign involved former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, former Deputy CM TS Singh Deo and Leader of Opposition in state assembly Charan Das Mahant.
The BJP’s 20-key promises in its manifesto included rebate of 25 per cent in property tax on properties owned by women, expansion of ‘pink toilets’ for women in market places, free Wi-Fi facility in schools and colleges, free sanitary pads to female students in schools and colleges and sickle cell screening centres in all municipal corporation areas.
The Congress has promised doorstep delivery of public services, free Wi-Fi at public places, installation of CCTV cameras near schools and colleges, free sanitary pads to female students in school and colleges and regularization of contractual employees of municipal corporations.
In the last urban body polls held in 2019-2020, the then ruling Congress captured mayoral posts in all 10 municipal corporations.
At the time, polls were held in an indirect manner under which elected corporators chose a mayor and chairperson from among themselves. This indirect method system was introduced in 2019 by then Bhupesh Baghel government.
However, the Sai government restored the previous system of direct elections. In this system, people will vote for mayoral candidates.
