Ahmedabad: BJP, Congress and Aam Aadmi Party will face off in the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation elections on Sunday. Voting will be held for all 44 seats across 11 wards, with 130 candidates in the fray. Okha and Thara municipalities will also go to the polls. Bypolls will be held for seats in several district and taluka panchayats and other local bodies. Counting of votes will be held on Oct 13.Voting will take place from 7am to 6pm. SEC said extensive police deployment and patrolling arrangements had been made at sensitive and hypersensitive polling stations.In Okha municipality, elections will be held for 32 of the 36 seats across nine wards. Four seats have been won uncontested. State Election Commission said 75 candidates were contesting the remaining seats.Elections in Thara municipality will be held across six wards comprising 24 seats, with 59 candidates in the fray.Bypolls will also be held for one seat each in the Kheralu, Chhota Udepur and Bayad municipalities, besides seats in other local bodies.The commission appealed to voters to cooperate with the authorities and expressed hope that the elections would be conducted in a free, fair and peaceful manner.Elections to 15 municipal corporations in Gujarat, excluding Gandhinagar and Junagadh, were held in April this year. BJP swept the polls, while Congress finished second and AAP made limited gains.The results also enabled All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and Samajwadi Party to open their accounts in Gujarat for the first time.
