DW BUREAU / PATIALA In Patiala district, the voting process for the general elections of four Municipal Councils, Rajpura, Nabha, Samana and Patran took place today. There was a lot of enthusiasm among the local voters for these polls and about 70.09 percent voter turnout was recorded in the local body elections in the district. Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer Kumar Amit and Senior Superintendent of Police Vikram Jeet Duggal visited Nabha and reviewed the voting process at Government Ripudaman College. Kumar Amit said that the votes were cast through EVMs and the counting of votes would take place on February 17. Kumar Amit said that there were a total 80416 voters in Municipal Council Rajpura where 64.15 percent voters cast their votes. In Nabha, out of 50,095 voters, 70.48 percent of them exercised their democratic right. For Samana Municipal Council, out of 44,388 voters, 67 percent cast their votes. Similarly, 78.73 percent voters out of a total of 23,013, cast their votes in Patran Municipal Council elections. Meanwhile, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Development)-cum-Additional District Election Officer Dr. Preeti Yadav said that during the Municipal Council elections, the administration had made all arrangements for thermal scanning of voters besides ensuring sanitizers and masks etc. to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic. During the poll process, SDM Patiala Charanjit Singh worked as Returning Officer for Rajpura Municipal Council Elections,SDM Kala Ram Kansal as Returning Officer for Nabha Municipal Council, SDM Naman Markan as Returning Officer for Municipal Council Samana and AMD PRTC Nitish Singla as Returning Officer for Municipal Council Patran. Apart from that, SP City Varun Sharma, SP (H) Dr. Simrat Kaur, SP (D) Harmeet Singh Hundal and other senior police officials were deployed to monitor the security arrangements during the elections for various Municipal Councils. A total of 9,222 candidates were in the fray for elections to 2,302 wards of the eight municipal corporations of Abohar, Bathinda Batala, Kapurthala, Mohali, Hoshiarpur, Pathankot and Moga and 109 municipal councils and nagar panchayats in the state. Out of total candidates, 2,832 are contesting as independents, 2,037 are of the ruling Congress while 1,569 are Akali Dal nominees. The number of candidates of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Aam Aadmi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party is 1,003, 1,606 and 160 respectively. The State Election Commission (SEC) had set up 4,102 polling stations, of which, 1,708 have been declared as sensitive and 861 as hyper sensitive. A voter who enters the polling station before 4 pm will have the right to vote, an SEC spokesperson said. Around 7,000 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) had been deployed for voting. (editor@dailyworld.in)