Polling is underway for the civic body elections in Punjab, officials said on Sunday. The voting began at 8 am on Sunday and it will continue till 4 pm, they said. A total of 9,222 candidates are in the fray for elections to 2,302 wards of the eight municipal corporations of Abohar, Bathinda Batala, Kapurthala, Mohali, Hoshiarpur, Pathankot and Moga and 109 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in the state.
Out of the total candidates, 2,832 are contesting as independents, 2,037 are of the ruling Congress while 1,569 are Akali Dal nominees. The number of candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party is 1,003, 1,606 and 160 respectively.
The State Election Commission (SEC) has set up 4,102 polling stations, of which, 1,708 have been declared as sensitive and 861 as hypersensitive.
A voter who enters the polling station before 4 pm will have the right to vote, an SEC spokesperson said.
Around 7,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have been deployed for voting.
As many as 19,000 police personnel have been deputed to conduct free and fair elections, the spokesperson said.
There are 20,49,777 male, 18,65,354 female and 149 transgender voters, totalling 39,15,280 registered voters in the state for the civic body elections, he said.
The counting of votes will take place on February 17.
(With PTI inputs)
