Ahead of the urban local body elections in Jharkhand, 41 ward councillor candidates have secured victory uncontested, while three wards will not witness polling due to the absence of any nominations, State election officials said.
Polling for 48 urban local bodies across the state is scheduled for February 23, with the counting of votes set for February 27.
The elections will determine representatives for 48 mayoral or chairperson positions and councillors in 1,087 wards spread across nine municipal corporations, 20 Municipal Councils and 19 Nagar Panchayats.
State Election Commission Secretary Radhe Shyam Prasad stated that 41 wards saw only one valid nomination each, resulting in those candidates being declared elected without a contest.
However, three wards failed to attract any nominations. These include wards 5 and 11 of Domchanch Nagar Panchayat in Koderma district and ward 22 of Mango Municipal Corporation in Jamshedpur.
The nomination window opened on January 29 and closed on February 4, while candidates were allowed to withdraw their nominations until February 6.
A total of 562 aspirants, among them 235 women, are competing for the posts of mayor or chairperson. Meanwhile, 5,569 candidates — including 2,727 women — are in the race for ward councillor seats.
More than 43.33 lakh voters, of whom 21.26 lakh are women, are eligible to cast their ballots in the civic exercise.
Although the elections are officially non-party contests and do not feature party symbols on ballots, several candidates are supported by political parties.
For smooth conduct of polling, authorities have established 4,304 polling stations statewide. Of these, 896 have been categorised as hyper-sensitive and 2,445 as sensitive.
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