Good turnout of 70% in Pune district, all eyes now on result day

The polling for six civic bodies, including Baramati Nagar Parishad, in Pune district was postponed to December 20 after a few candidates approached the local court over the process followed during the initial stage of election process.

Voting underway in Lonavala on Tuesday.

After a slow start, the elections for 12 Nagar Parishads and three Nagar Panchayats in Pune district picked up on Tuesday as the day progressed, recording a turnout of around 70 per cent. The counting of votes will be held on December 21 after the Bombay High Court directed counting for all seats, including those where polling has been postponed to December 20, on the same day.

The polling for six civic bodies, including Baramati Nagar Parishad, in Pune district was postponed to December 20 after a few candidates approached the local court over the process followed during the initial stage of election process.

For the 15 civic bodies for which polling was held on Tuesday, 76 candidates contested for the post of president and 955 candidates for corporators’ seats.

There were a total of 524 polling stations across 12 Nagar Parishads and three Nagar Panchayats, where 4,51,025 voters (including 2,27,142 men, 2,23,407 women and 23 others) were registered as voters.

To ensure that voters exercise their right to vote, the government declared December 2 as a public holiday in the respective local self-government constituencies. This holiday also applied to voters who work outside their constituency.

The polling was smooth except in a few places where there was tension after rival group supporters protested against each other. In a polling booth each in Bhor and Lonavala, the candidate was reported to have done puja of the EVM machines hoping to get a result in their favour. This is considered to be a violation of election rules so action is expected against the candidates who did puja.

Voting picked up in Pune district as it increased to 35.69 per cent in the first six hours till 1.30 pm and later doubled to 73.33 per cent in next four hours till 5.30 pm.

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The district administration said that this was the tentative information and final data will be released later on. The outcome of Nagar Parishad and Nagar Palika elections is likely to set trends for the forthcoming elections.

In the ongoing elections, the ruling Mahayuti partners contested separately and all its leaders Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of BJP, Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde of Shiv Sena and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar of NCP and their respective ministers had gone all out to win as many seats as they can to prove their strength in the state.