LUCKNOW: Tight security arrangements have been made for the crucial second round of the local bodies elections in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday when over nine crore voters will elect the mayors of 11 Nagar Nigams (Municipal Corporations) and 900 corporators.

The 11 cities and towns are Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Agra, Meerut, Bareilly, Gorakhpur, Moradabad, Aligarh and Jhansi. The Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam would go to the polls on November 3.

Elections in the second phase will also be held for 24 Nagar Palika Parishads and nine Nagar Panchayats.

Of these, the mayoral elections are of much political significance for the ruling Samajwadi Party, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party as the verdict would signal the trend of next year's Assembly elections, particularly in the urban and semi-urban areas.

In view of the poll violence in the first phase of elections on October 28 in Etawah, Etah, Hardoi and Muzaffarnagar, and the subsequent post-poll violence in Etawah on Sunday that claimed two lives, security arrangements have been beefed up. Besides the deployment of 123 companies of Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC), five companies of Shanti Suraksha Bal (SSB) would be deployed in Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Allahabad and Kanpur.

Additional Election Commissioner Vinay Priya Dubey said on Monday that the SSB would not be deployed anywhere else. He said the State Election Commission had permitted videography of the elections, particularly of the hyper-sensitive polling centres which number 828 in the 11 Nagar Nigams where elections will take place on Tuesday.

Mr. Dubey said 50 extra videographers each would be given to Allahabad and Lucknow on the request of the District Magistrates. The Allahabad DM has identified 26 hyper-sensitive polling stations where an extra magistrate along with the videographer would be present.

Extensive videography for the election had been ordered in the light of several complaints of rigging, booth capturing and other poll irregularities in the first phase received by the Commission.

On Monday, the Commission's office was besieged by opposition party workers who met officials and apprised them of alleged booth capturing by Samajwadi Party supporters in October 28.

The Joint Election Commissioner, Pramod Chandra Gupta, told newspersons that the complaints received so far presented a mixed bag with the Samajwadi Party candidates and workers also demanding that the elections in two places should be countermanded.

These places are Gonda and Etah Nagar Panchayats, where the SP complaints alleged rigging and booth capturing by Congress and BJP supporters.

In counter-complaints, both the Congress and BJP have stated that elections here were conducted in a free and fair manner.

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