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Uttarakhand Civic Election Result: The counting of votes for the Uttarakhand Municipal Corporation Election 2025 is underway at 54 centres across 13 districts on Saturday, January 25.
The voting, held on January 23 across 100 municipal bodies, including 11 municipal corporations, 43 municipal councils and 46 nagar panchayats, recorded a turnout of 65.41 per cent – 4.38 per cent lower compared to the previous elections.
The voting on Thursday took place via ballot papers across 1,515 polling centres and 3,394 polling booths. As many as 72 candidates are in the fray for mayoral polls while 445 are vying for the posts of municipal council chairpersons. Over 4,000 candidates are in the fray to become councillors in the elections.
The use of ballot papers has caused delays in result announcements, with final outcomes expected by late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. Reports about voter list discrepancies during the elections raised questions about the State Election Commission's functioning.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP), which is in power in the state, went to the civic elections buoyed by the Cabinet approval for the Uniform Civil Code (UCC). The saffron party’s campaign, led by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, revolved around bringing in a 'triple engine government' – same party in power at Centre, in state and in civic bodies.
The BJP also raised issues like population rise and demographic change in the run-up to civic polls.
The Congress has, however, written to the State Election Commission over the UCC cabinet decision calling it a violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The party contested elections on local issues like unemployment, corruption and alleged misuse of land.
In the last local body polls held in 2018, the BJP won six mayoral posts, while the Congress won two. The Congress won 14 chairpersons’ posts as against the BJP’s 13. In the nagar panchayats, the BJP currently has 17 chairpersons while the Congress has seven.
After failing to win even one of the state’s five seats in 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress made a comeback a month later winning the Badrinath and Manglaur bypolls. The party, however, lost the Kedarnath Assembly bypoll in November last year to the BJP.
As the counting continues, BJP's Mayoral candidate Saurabh Thapliyal was ahead by 6 thousand votes in Municipal Corporation of Dehradun.
In Municipal Corporation Kotdwar, BJP candidate Shailendra Singh Rawat was ahead by 3400 votes in the first round in the Mayoral elections. In Roorkee Municipal Corporation, Anita Devi Aggarwal of BJP was leading with 4400 votes.
After the first round in Srinagar Mayor elections, independent Aarti Bhandari was leading with 2120 votes. BJP's Mayoral candidates were leading in Rishikesh, Haridwar and Haldwani as well, according to media reports.
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