Gandhinagar: The last day for filing nominations for Gujarat’s urban and rural local body elections passed on Saturday, with 32,748 nominations filed across 9,992 seats. The final count may change after initial scrutiny. On roughly 70 seats across various local bodies, no candidate from Congress, AAP, any other party, or any independent stepped up against the BJP nominee. The actual picture of how many seats will be contested, and how many will be won unopposed, will only become clear after the withdrawal deadline of April 15.A total of 4.19 crore of Gujarat’s 4.40 crore eligible voters will go to the polls on April 26 to elect representatives across 15 municipal corporations, 84 municipalities, 34 district panchayats, and 260 taluka panchayats. Voting will be held on EVMs from 7am to 6pm, and counting will take place on April 28, , the state election commission (SEC) announced on Wednesday.The contest is expected to be multi-cornered, with the BJP, Congress, AAP, smaller parties, and independents all in the fray for 9,992 seats. In terms of wards, elections will cover 7,353 wards: 261 in municipal corporations, 668 in municipalities, 1,190 in district panchayats, and 5,234 in taluka panchayats. A total of 10,005 seats — 1,044 in municipal corporations, 2,637 in municipalities, 1,090 in district panchayats, and 5,234 in taluka panchayats — will be decided. Nine of the 15 municipal corporations going to polls are holding elections for the first time, having been recently constituted. The BJP currently holds power in the remaining six: Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, and Jamnagar. The nine new corporations are Karamsad-Anand, Gandhidham, Nadiad, Navsari, Porbandar, Mehsana, Morbi, Vapi, and Surendranagar.A total of 32,708 nominations by candidates from various parties and independents, including 3,040 for municipalities, 5,784 for district panchayats, and 19,282 for taluka panchayats, were filed by Saturday evening.By-elections will also be held for 13 seats across 11 municipalities. The SEC commissioner noted that this is the first major election held after the implementation of 27% OBC reservation, and also the first for the nine newly formed municipal corporations, seven new municipalities, and several new taluka panchayats.
