67.36% voting in last phase of Maha municipal council polls

An average 67.36 per cent voter turnout was registered today for the fourth and final phase of elections to municipal councils in Nagpur and Gondia districts , according to the state election commission (SEC).
The figure of 67.36 per cent voting is the primary figure and the SEC will issue the final figure after local returning officers complete their verification procedure, an official release said.
The polling for the 244 seats in the 11 nagar parishads of the two districts came to an end at 5.30 PM.
There were long queues in some polling stations, where booth level officers issued chits to the voters in the queue and completed the voting procedure, officials said.

Nagpur district has nine nagar parishads, while Gondia has two where the voting took place.
Meanwhile, violence was witnessed in Katol council in Nagpur district during polling today, following which local BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh was booked for criminal intimidation.

Police said 'Vidarbha Maza Party' leader Charansingh Thakur has filed a complaint stating that Deshmukh broke mirror of his four-wheeler at Hetipeth Budhwari, around 2 kms from Katol police station.
An offence has been registered against the MLA under various sections of IPC, including criminal intimidation, mischief and the act endangering life or personal safety of others, they added.
There were 3,82,060 voters in these 11 bodies of whom 1,91,791 were male and 1,90,263 female. Six transgenders were also in the voting list, a SEC spokesperson said.

Counting of votes will take place tomorrow at 10 AM.
As many as 1,190 candidates are in the fray for the 244 seats.
Like previous elections, nagar parishad chairman will also be elected directly by the voters.
This is the last of the four-phase local bodies polls which began from October 17, last year. There are a total 192 nagar parishads and 20 nagar panchayats in the state.
The election was not held in two local bodies. At Shirala nagar parishad in Sangli, no nomination form was filed.
At Vaijapur nagar parishad in Aurangabad, the election was suspended due to a legal matter. Since, the case is in court, the Election Commission decided to wait for its directives.