Gandhinagar: On the eve of the last day of filing nominations for the local body elections, the BJP declared its list of all 192 candidates for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) election late on Friday. Significantly, the BJP repeated only 20% of its sitting municipal councillors in the AMC. The BJP has a strength of 160 councillors in the AMC, of whom only 32 were repeated.Among those who were not repeated was mayor Pratibha Jain, who represented the Shahibaug ward. Former mayor Kirit Parmar, who preceded Jain, has also been dropped. Deputy mayor Jatin Patel, a councillor from the Ghatlodia ward; Shital Daga, the party whip in the AMC; and Gaurang Prajapati, the leader of the ruling party in the civic body, have also been dropped from the list. None of the chairpersons of the municipal committees have been included in the list. Among those who were repeated was standing committee chairman Devang Dani, councillor from the Bodakdev ward. Former standing committee chairman Hitesh Barot has also been repeated by the BJP. In all, 4.19 crore of the state’s 4.4 crore eligible voters will exercise their franchise on April 26 to elect representatives to 15 municipal corporations, including Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat and Rajkot; 84 municipalities; 34 district panchayats; and 260 taluka panchayats across the state. Voting will be conducted from 7am to 6pm on April 26, while counting of votes will take place on April 28.
