Heavy police deployment,closed shops and long traffic jams marked the counting process for the Ghaziabad urban body civic polls on Saturday. The procedure for tallying of votes continued well past 10 pm on Saturday. At the time of going to press,BJP candidate for the post of mayor,Teluram Kamboj,was in the lead,followed by Independents backed by SP and BSP. BJPs Damayant Goyal holds the post of Mayor at present. The two counting centres in Ghaziabad witnessed massive crowds,with supporters of all candidates waiting for results to be declared. Ingram Institute,near the Collectorate,was the venue for counting of votes of Dasna and Hindon areas and MB Girls College,near GDA office,saw results being assimilated for the Ghaziabad municipality. At both venues,supporters complained that not much information was being passed on to them. Normally,there are announcements over the loudspeaker to let people know the position in a constituency. But,there have not been many announcements today. Many a time,supporters of different candidates,contesting from the same area,started to celebrate as they were told that their candidate is in the lead. There is no clarity, said Mohammad Nayeem,who was at GDA to support Mohammad Naseer,an Independent contesting from Shaheed Nagar. Police said all efforts were made to ensure there were no law and order incidents. We have deployed almost the entire force of Ghaziabad city. We have to be careful. Often there are scuffles between supporters of opposing candidates. The situation can go out of hand if not controlled properly. No one without a district administration pass is allowed inside the venue, a police officer said. Traffic police said with many going towards the two counting centres in Ghaziabad city,they were forced to divert vehicles on the National Highway to Haridwar. The two counting centres are on the same stretch. There were several hundred supporters at each venue. As the crowds were blocking the roads,we had to divert traffic away from the venues to avoid accidents. There was heavy traffic on the arterial roads of Ghaziabad which lead to Delhi, a police officer said.
