Gandhinagar, April 26 Voting for Gujarat’s local body elections began on Sunday, with polling underway across municipal corporations, municipalities, district panchayats and taluka panchayats in what is one of the state’s largest grassroots electoral exercises.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah is expected to cast his vote around 11 a.m. at a polling station near Kameshwar Mahadev in the Naranpura area of Ahmedabad.
According to official details, he will vote at the Naranpura sub-zonal office as part of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) elections, and is likely to be accompanied by his family.
Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel is scheduled to vote at around 10 a.m. at Shilaj Primary School in Ahmedabad.
BJP state president Jagdish Vishwakarma will vote at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel school complex in Thakkarbapanagar, while Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi will cast his vote at Central School in Ichhanath in Surat.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the civic polls by casting his vote through the postal ballot.
This follows his practice in the previous two municipal elections, although he has voted in person in Assembly and Lok Sabha elections held in Ahmedabad.
According to the State Election Commission, voting is being conducted from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) across polling stations in urban and rural local bodies.
The elections cover a wide range of local bodies, including municipal corporations, municipalities, district panchayats and taluka panchayats.
In total, thousands of seats are being contested across Gujarat’s urban and rural institutions.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation alone comprises 192 seats across 48 wards, while across the state, nearly 10,000 seats are up for election in local bodies, including municipal corporations, municipalities and panchayats.
Officials said voting is being held across a large number of polling stations, with extensive security and administrative arrangements in place.
In Ahmedabad alone, thousands of personnel have been deployed to ensure the smooth conduct of polling, which is part of a wider multi-tier civic electoral exercise spanning over four crore registered voters across Gujarat.
The State Election Commission has also confirmed that counting of votes will take place on April 28.
With polling now underway, the civic elections are being seen as a major test of political strength for parties at the local level across Gujarat’s urban centres and rural districts.
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