Preparations for the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) elections have reached the final stage. Voting will be held on January 15, with the counting of votes scheduled for January 16 at 15 locations across the city.
This will be the 41st PMC election. There are a total of 165 corporator seats. As BJP’s Manjusha Nagpure (Ward 35) and Shrikant Jagtap have been elected unopposed, elections will be held for 163 seats.
A total of 1,155 candidates, including 277 independent candidates, will be contesting.
There will be 4,011 polling stations in the city. The highest number of polling stations (174) is in Ward 9, Baner–Balewadi–Pashan, and the lowest number (68) is in Ward 39, Upper Super Indiranagar.
For voting, 13,862 ballot units and 5,321 control units have been arranged. Each polling station will have a presiding officer, three polling officers, and one security personnel. Around 23,500 employees have been appointed for election duty.
To manage logistics, 1,051 vehicles, including PMPML buses, have been provided. Preparation of polling kits is currently underway, officials informed.
Postal voting facilities have been provided to election staff, and the process is ongoing. Sealing of ballot papers in voting machines has also begun in the presence of candidates’ representatives.
To prevent double voting, the administration has identified 3,00,446 duplicate voter names. Municipal employees are visiting these voters to confirm their voting location. Once a voter casts a vote at one place, their name at the other location will be marked to prevent double voting.
Counting of votes will be held on January 16 at 15 locations, including Sarasbaug, Shivajinagar, Kothrud, Balewadi, Hadapsar, Kharadi, Bhavani Peth, Vadgaon Sheri and other areas.
The total number of voters in Pune is 35,01,854, out of which 18,32,449 are men, 17,19,017 are women, and 488 are others. There are 4,68,633 Scheduled Caste voters and 40,687 Scheduled Tribe voters.
With all systems in place, the civic administration has stated that the city is fully prepared to conduct smooth and orderly elections.
