The counting of the votes will take place on November 10. (Representation)
Ahmedabad:
Voting for the eight-seat assembly bypolls in Gujarat will take place Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. and authorities are taking various measures to verify the spread of COVID-19 during the poll, officials said on Monday.
A total of 81 candidates are in contention in the eight seats, which collectively have 18.75 lakh voters, Gujarat chief electoral officer S Murali Krishna told reporters in Gandhinagar.
Since no more than 1,000 voters are allowed in a booth due to COVID-19 concerns and Election Commission guidelines, 3,024 voting booths have been installed, more than in a normal scenario, Krishna said.
“To stop the spread of infection, we will also be providing plastic gloves to all voters as they will have to sign the register and touch the EVM buttons. Their hands will be disinfected when entering and leaving voting booths, “he said.
The official said 3,400 heat guns, 41,000 N-95 masks, 82,000 disposable masks, 41,000 face shields and an equal number of rubber gloves have been purchased for personnel deployed for the poll.
The voting process would be webcast live from 900 voting booths, the official said.
The bypasses will be held on eight seats: Abdasa (district of Kutch), Limbdi (district of Surendranagar), Morbi (district of Morbi), Dhari (Amreli), Gadhada (Botad), Karjan (Vadodara), Dang (district of Dang) and Kaprada (Valsad).
By-elections to these seats were made necessary after the resignation of the incumbent congressmen ahead of the Rajya Sabha poll held in June this year.
Five of them then joined the ruling BJP and the party aligned them with the seats they won in 2017.
These five candidates are – Brijesh Merja (Morbi), Akshay Patel (Karjan), Jitu Chaudhary (Kaprada), Pradyumansinh Jadeja (Abdasa) and J V Kakadiya (Dhari).
The other three BJP candidates are Atmaram Parmar (Gadhada), Vijay Patel (Dang) and Kiritsinh Rana (Limbdi).
Mr Parmar and Mr Rana are former ministers of state who lost the 2017 Assembly ballots in the same seats.
The opposition Congress aligned Jayantilal Patel (Morbi), Kiritsinh Jadeja (Karjan), Babubhai Vartha (Kaprada), Shantilal Sendhani (Abdasa), Suresh Kotadiya (Dhari), Mohan Solanki (Gadhada), Suryakant Gavit (Dang) and Chetan Khachar (Limbdi).
The Bharatiya Tribal Party, which currently has two MPs in the 182-member House, also fielded two candidates – in Dang, a seat reserved for List Tribe candidates, and in Karjan.
Smaller outfits like Bahujan Maha party, Bahujan Mukti party, Bharatiya Jana Parishad, Akhil Bharatiya Rajarya Sabha, All India Majlish-e-Inqulab-e-Millat, Rashtravadi Jana Chetna, Yuva Jan Jagruti, Vyavastha Parivartan Party and Rashtriya Party presented a few candidates.
The counting of the votes will take place on November 10.
