Over 1.45 crore voters in Delhi are eligible to vote in the polls for which more than 13,000 polling booths have been set up across the city. Votes will be counted on December 7.
Ahead of the high-stakes Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections in Delhi, AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday urged people in the city to exercise their franchise for setting up an honest and performing establishment in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
The MCD polls for 250 wards in the national capital started at 8 AM and is currently underway.
"Today is voting for making a neat and clean and beautiful Delhi, voting for forming a corruption free government (establishment) at the municipal corporation.I appeal all the Delhi citizen to do go for voting to form an honest and performing government at the MCD," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.
Over 1.45 crore voters in Delhi are eligible to vote in the polls for which more than 13,000 polling booths have been set up across the city. Votes will be counted on December 7.
This is the first civic election after the fresh delimitation exercise, and the poll is being held days after the first phase of the Gujarat assembly elections, and a day ahead of its second phase.
This is also the first civic poll being held in the national capital after the February 2020 riots here and according to the data shared by officials, 3,360 booths, spanning 493 locations, have been identified in critical or sensitive categories.
In the civic election in 2017, the BJP had won 181 of the 270 wards. Polling could not be held on two seats due to the death of candidates. The AAP had won 48 wards and the Congress 27. In 2017 civic polls, the voting percentage was about 53.
Earlier this year, the BJP-ruled Centre unified the three corporations in the national capital into Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), reducing the number of wards from 272 to 250.
The Aam Aadmi Party looking to wrest power from the BJP, while the saffron party is eying its fourth consecutive time at the civic body.
The Congress, which has suffered back-to-back drubbing in the national capital since 2015 in parliamentary, assembly and municipal corporations polls, will try to redeem itself with a notable performance this time.
The three main parties have fielded candidates in all the 250 wards, with 1,349 in the fray in all.
Among the other parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party has fielded 132 candidates while the All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen headed by Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi is contesting in 15 wards.
The Nationalist Congress Party has fielded candidates in 26 wards and Janata Dal (United) has 22 candidates in fray.
In the high decibel 13-day campaigning, the BJP leaders claimed victory in the election for 250 MCD wards on December 4 and mounted an all-out attack on AAP and its chief Kejriwal over corruption.
On Friday, the party announced its "commitment" to regularise weekly markets of street vendors and hawkers, hours before the culmination of campaigning for the civic polls.
BJP national vice president and incharge of the party's Delhi unit Vaijayanti Panda claimed that the city voters will vote for development. "The BJP is going to secure a comfortable majority in the MCD," Panda said.
The AAP leadership has said it will win over 200 wards. Kejriwal had earlier claimed during the campaigning that the BJP will not secure more than 20 wards. AAP leaders led by the CM attacked the BJP with equal vigour, raising issues such as landfills in the city and "corruption" during the saffron party's 15-year-rule at the municipal corporations.
As part of its campaign, the AAP repeatedly targeted the BJP over its "failure" to clear the three landfill sites in Delhi's Ghazipur, Okhla and Bhalswa during its tenure in the municipal corporation.
Over the years, fires have broken out at these dumping yards which have tonnes of legacy waste, leaving neighbouring areas shrouded in smoke for days.
Meanwhile, the capital has geared for the highly anticipated civic polls with government schools remaining shut om Saturday and Delhi Metro train services on all lines starting from 4 AM from all terminal stations on Sunday ahead of the voting at 8 am. All wholesale and retail markets in the national capital will remain closed on Sunday.
(With inputs from PTI)