Mangaluru: Elections began for Ullal and Puttur City Municipal Corporations, Bantwal Town Municipal Corporation and Udupi distrcit’s four local bodies today. Of the 89 wards, 1,17,979 voters are required to elect 89 Representatives, with a total of 250 candidates in the arena.

Of the 31 wards in Ullal, 102 candidates are contesting, with 44,132 voters. Out of 31 wards in Puttur, 77 candidates are in the fray, with 39,745 voters. Of the 27 wards in Bantwal, 71 candidates are in the arena with 34,102 voters.

Ullal has 43 polling stations, including 18 most sensitive and 11 sensitive stations. There are 41 polling booths in Puttur, with 27 sensitive. Bantwal has 18 very sensitive and 14 sensitive of 32 booths.

A total of 145 voting machines are being used for elections to three local bodies. Also, 145 ballet units and control units are also installed.

Nota usage

Voters who do not want to vote for any of the candidates are allowed to vote for NOTA option in the voting machine.


Polling booth Details of Udupi district 

For the 35 wards of the Udupi Urban Local Bodies, 98 polling stations have been setup. Of 97,561 voters, there are 47,538 men, 50,022 women and one other.

There are 23,302 voters, including 11,292 men and 12,010 women in 23 Kundapura town Municipality.

In 23 wards of Karkala Municipality, there are 23 polling stations. It has 9,879 men and 10,725 women, with a total of 20,604 voters.

There are 16 polling stations for 16 wards of the Saligrama Town Panchayat, with 6,213 men and 6,748 women, with a total of 12,961 voters.

General Holiday:

In a bid to fecilitate voter to exercise their franchise,  general holiday for all the state government offices, schools, colleges (including aided educational institutions) of the respective constituencies have been decleared holiday on August 31.

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Panaji (PTI): Saurabh Luthra and Gaurav Luthra, the main accused and owners of the Goa nightclub where a massive blaze claimed 25 lives, fled to Phuket hours after the tragedy, Goa Police said on Monday.

"Goa Police have taken further steps to coordinate with the Interpol Division of the CBI to apprehend both Saurabh and Gaurav Luthra at the earliest," a senior police officer said.

A massive fire at the nightclub, some 25 kilometres away from Panaji, on late Saturday night killed 25 persons. The deceased comprised 20 employees of the nightclub and five tourists, including four from Delhi. Five injured people were undergoing treatment at the government-run Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH).

After registering an FIR against them, a Look Out Circular was issued against them by December 7 by the Bureau of Immigration (BOI) at the request of the Goa Police.

The Bureau of Immigration at Mumbai was contacted, and it was found that both the accused had taken the 6E 1073 flight to Phuket at 5.30 am on December 7, immediately after the fire incident, which occurred around midnight, the officer said.

READ ALSO: Goa nightclub fire: Owner Saurabh Luthra expresses grief, assures management support

He said the Goa Police had immediately dispatched a team to Delhi to conduct raids on the addresses of the accused Gaurav and Saurabh Luthra.

"Since they were not available, a notice under the appropriate sections of law was pasted on the gate of their house. This shows their intent to avoid the police investigation", he said.

Goa Police have obtained transit remand of Bharat Kohli, an employee of the club, and are bringing him to Goa.

He also said that the postmortem on all 25 deceased has been completed and bodies handed over to their families.