(LiveMint)
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday established early gains in the Uttar Pradesh civic polls as counting of votes was in progress for all the 652 urban local bodies. For the mayoral elections, the BJP forged ahead on almost all the 16 seats from where trends were available after an hour of counting.
BJP’s mayor candidates were leading in Meerut, Saharanpur, Lucknow, Ghaziabad and Gorakhpur as per initial trends. Counting of ballots polled in three phases on 22, 26 and 29 November was on under tight security cover and CCTV surveillance at 334 centres at district and tehsil headquarters, the state election commission said.Central paramilitary forces have been deployed around the counting centres. Arrangements have also been made for web casting of the counting process. The final results are expected by this evening.
