UP local body polls: Voting for the final phase of urban local body polls in Uttar Pradesh will take place on Thursday covering 38 districts, including Meerut, Ghaziabad, Shahjahanpur, Bareilly, Aligarh, Kanpur and Ayodhya. The polls are considered significant as political parties are trying to showcase their strength before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Campaigning for the final phase ended on Tuesday evening with BJP and Samajwadi Party leaders cris-crossing the poll-bound areas.

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Shahjahanpur will vote to elect its first mayor. Meerut and Aligarh had BSP mayors in 2017 while the BJP ruled the rest. According to the State Election Commission (SEC), over 1.92 crore voters are eligible to cast their votes to elect their representatives in the second phase. Voting will be held from 7 am to 6 pm on Thursday.

The first phase of voting was held on May 4. The counting of votes will take place on May 13. As many as 39,146 candidates are in the fray in the second round for 6,929 posts, which includes seven mayors and 581 corporators.

Apart from this, voting will be held to elect 95 chairpersons and 2,520 members of nagar palika parishads, and 267 chairpersons and 3,459 members of various nagar panchayats. The SEC said 77 representatives, including nine corporators in this round, have been elected unopposed. Addressing an election rally in Kanpur on Tuesday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said, "Those who were responsible for riots and curfews in Kanpur and played with people's faith in the past are today the candidates of the Samajwadi Party. The kind of remarks they made against women and the 'Ramayana' are not hidden from anyone."

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"This election is not about hatred and personal comments. This is an election to make your city a smart city, a safe city and one which will have all basic facilities," he said. Targeting the SP in Ayodhya on Monday, Adityanath had also referred to the incidents of firing on 'kar sevaks' in 1990, when the SP led by Mulayam Singh Yadav was in power. He said a "wrong message" would go out if those who opened fire at 'kar sevaks' get votes in the city.

Both the Deputy Chief Ministers, Keshav Prasad Maurya and Brajesh Pathak, Union minister Smriti Irani, UP BJP chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary also campaigned for the party candidates. From the opposition camp, Mainpuri MP Dimple Yadav and Shivpal Yadav extended a helping hand to SP president Akhilesh Yadav, who had been campaigning for the party nominees.

Dimple Yadav held a roadshow in Kanpur Monday. She said people have started realising that it was only her party which could truly work for the state's development. She also said people will no longer be misled by the BJP.

According to the final list of reserved seats, the mayor seat in Agra has been reserved for SC (female), Jhansi for SC, Shahjahanpur and Firozabad for OBC (female), Saharanpur and Meerut for OBC, and Lucknow, Kanpur and Ghaziabad have been reserved for women.

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