Polling began for the Delhi municipal elections this morning as large number of police personnel kept tight vigil over the city to ensure that the nine-and-a-half-hour long exercise go without any untoward incident.
The electoral fate of 2,423 candidates would be sealed during the polling held in 272 wards of the three civic bodies - East, South and North - carved out of the existing Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
The polling began at 8 AM and would end at 5:30 PM. The counting of votes would be done on Tuesday.
A total of 1.15 crore eligible voters would exercise their franchise in the polls which include 42.95 lakh voters in North Delhi Municipal Corporation, 42.67 lakh voters in South Delhi corporation and 27.16 lakh voters in East Delhi corporation.
There are 104 each wards in South and North Corporations and 64 in the East, of which 138 seats are reserved for women.
South has the highest number of 904 candidates followed by North (885) and East (634). The municipal polls is seen as crucial for Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Congress as well as opposition BJP with leaders believing that it could be an indicator for what is in store for the Assembly polls which is 18 months away.
BJP, which has 164 councillors in the undivided MCD against Congress' 67 and BSP's 17, harps on alleged corruption by Dikshit government while Congress is targeting the saffron party on its ‘inefficient and corrupt’ administration in MCD.
The run-up to the polls also saw some embarrassment for BJP when one of its candidates, a sitting councillor, was arrested for allegedly murdering a partyman, who was opposed to him. Councillor Madhav Prasad was granted bail on Saturday.
The State Election Commission has made elaborate arrangements for Sunday's polling by deploying around 77,000 officials for conducting the polls and over 83,000 police personnel for security.
A total of 55 polling stations have been identified as hyper-sensitive while 275 have been declared as sensitive out of 11,543 polling stations.
Most of the hyper-sensitive and sensitive polling stations fall under Assembly segments of Jamia Nagar, Chandni Chowk and Seelampur.
Though the main contenders are BJP and Congress, but smaller parties like Samajwadi Party and BSP are giving sleepless nights to them. One of the interesting fight would be in Zakir Nagar where terror accused Zia-ur-Rehman is contesting elections from behind the bars. His family and supporters are campaigning on his behalf.
An analysis by Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) said that BJP has fielded the highest number of 39 candidates with criminal background followed by Congress (28).
The report was done after the NGO went through 1,485 affidavits of poll candidates. On the assets front, it said Congress has fielded a maximum of 116 crorepatis while BJP has fielded 103 crorepatis.
There are 342 crorepatis contesting the election and BJP candidate Satvinder Kaur Sirsa, contesting from Punjabi Bagh ward tops the list of crorepatis with assets worth Rs 112 crore followed by Karuna Bhalla, BJP candidate in Khyala with assets worth Rs 50 crore.