Gandhinagar civic polls will be held on Sunday for all 44 seats across 11 wards, with the BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party contesting the Gujarat capital’s municipal corporation election. Voting will take place from 7am to 6pm, while counting is scheduled for October 13.
A total of 130 candidates are in the fray for the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation election. The State Election Commission has also scheduled elections for the Okha and Thara municipalities, along with bypolls for seats in several district and taluka panchayats and other local bodies.
In Okha municipality, polling will be held for 32 of the 36 seats across nine wards. The remaining four seats have been won uncontested, while 75 candidates are contesting the seats going to the polls. The Thara municipality election covers six wards and 24 seats, with 59 candidates in the contest.
The State Election Commission said extensive police deployment and patrolling arrangements had been made at sensitive and hypersensitive polling stations. It appealed to voters to cooperate with the authorities and expressed hope that polling would be conducted in a free, fair and peaceful manner.
The elections will determine the composition of municipal bodies responsible for local civic administration in the three urban areas. Municipal corporations and municipalities typically oversee functions including local roads, sanitation, public health services, waste management and other civic operations, although the specific responsibilities of each body are governed by the applicable state framework.
The Gandhinagar contest is also the latest major electoral test for the three parties in Gujarat’s urban landscape. Elections to 15 municipal corporations in the state, excluding Gandhinagar and Junagadh, were held in April this year. The BJP swept those polls, Congress finished second and AAP made limited gains.
Those results also enabled the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and the Samajwadi Party to open their accounts in Gujarat for the first time. The Gandhinagar election will therefore take place against the backdrop of an established BJP advantage in recent municipal corporation polls, alongside continued competition from Congress and AAP.
In addition to the municipal elections, bypolls will be held for one seat each in the Kheralu, Chhota Udepur and Bayad municipalities, as well as for seats in other local bodies. The immediate administrative focus will now be on polling arrangements, security at sensitive booths and the counting process scheduled for October 13.
