UP urban local bodies polls on May 4 and 11

Lucknow, April 9 The Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission on Sunday announced that elections to urban local bodies will be held in two phases - on May 4 and 11 - and counting of votes will take place on May 13.

Talking to reporters, State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar said that voting will take place in nine divisions in each phase.

Polling in the first phase will be held in Saharanpur, Moradabad, Agra, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Lucknow, Devi Patan, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi divisions.

In the second phase, polling will be held in Meerut, Bareilly, Aligarh, Kanpur, Chitrakoot, Ayodhya, Basti, Azamgarh, and Mirzapur divisions.

The model code of conduct has come in force with the announcement of dates.

Elections will be held on 14,684 seats in 760 urban local bodies of the state.

As per the State Election Commissioner, the total number of urban voters has risen to 4,32,31,827 from 3,35,95,547 in 2017 after final publication of the voter list.

"As per final data received by the commission after voter list revision, a total 96,36,280 new voters have been added this time," Kumar said.

He said the main reason for this increase was inclusion of a large number of rural areas into nagar nigams, nagar palikas, and nagar panchayats.

"As many as 21,23,268 of the total new voters were earlier village residents before their transfer to urban areas," he said.