 "ULB polls: Multi-corner contest in Dharwad dist")
There are in all 392 candidates contesting from the 67 wards. Except for three wards, every ward has over three candidates. The highest number of candidates are in wards 1 and 65 (both have 11), followed by 10 candidates each in wards 12 and 40.
Campaigning received a boost after visits from several leaders such as Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar, former Union minister Anant Kumar, MP Prahlad Joshi, former chief ministers B S Yeddyurappa, H D Kumaraswamy, actress Shruti, BSR Congress chief B Sriramulu among others who held public meetings and padayatras to meet voters in Dharwad, Hubli and Alnavar.
Political parties are now struggling with the problem of inadequate manpower for election-related work, perhaps due to a lack of preparation for the polls. They have now turned to youth clubs and women's organisations, and women's self-help groups in particular. A senior leader from a political party said, members of such organisations were being offered lucrative sums by candidates to participate in campaigns.
Even as some political parties are grumbling over the Supreme Court imposing the elections on the urban local bodies in the state and the Election Commission giving a short period to campaign, the candidates consider the short period as a blessing in disguise.
The reason for their positive outlook is that they will be spared of huge spending on the daily expenditure of their supporters. The notification for elections came on February 14 and after completing of the formalities of filing and withdrawing the nomination papers, the final picture of those in fray emerged just eight days before the polling day.
The candidates have to stop open canvassing on the evening of March 5. The actual campaigning for those who had got the B form from the political parties started on the date of filing of the nomination and at the most they have had 10 days for active campaigning.
"Had we got more time to campaign, the expenditure by the candidates would have been high. Thanks to the election code of conduct and short period for campaigning, we can control the expenditure. This has come as a big relief," said a councilor who is in the fray for the fourth time.
Though the Election Commission has stipulated the maximum limit for spending by the candidate, each candidate has to spend on providing food and conveyance to his dedicated supporters and daily allowance to the campaigners if they are hired. "The minimum expenditure per day on simple food for those working with the candidate will be around Rs 50,000. Normally, there will be 100 persons campaigning for the candidate. If the campaigners are hired, women will have to be paid Rs 200 each per day and men Rs 400 each per day apart from food," said a campaign manager.
The district administration has made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of elections to six urban local bodies.
Deputy Commissioner Sameer Shukla who is also the returning officer for the district, said 747 polling booths will be set up in the district to elect representatives from the 156 wards. There will be 3,735 officials drawn from different departments working in different capacities in the election process.
Training has been provided to the returning officers.
Dharwad district has 690,000 voters including 340,000 women eligible to exercise their franchise in six ULBs.
Shukla said, six teams in the HDMC and one each in the municipalities and town panchayats have been formed to keep track of violations of MCC. These teams would be supervised by a committee consisting of the HDMC Commissioner, Dharwad Assistant Commissioner, Deputy Commissioners of Police and others.
The final list of sensitive and hyper-sensitive wards is yet to be finalised.