Chandigarh: After nearly 70 per cent voters exercised their franchise in elections to five municipal corporations and two municipal committees in Haryana, the counting of votes and results of Haryana municipal election will be declared today. As per reports, counting will start at 8 am and the results are expected by 12 PM today. Polls were held amid tight security arrangements and passed off peacefully. Polling was held at five municipal corporations - Hisar, Karnal, Panipat, Rohtak and Yamunanagar and the two municipal committees were Jakhal Mandi in Fatehabad and Pundri in Kaithal.

Earlier on Sunday, of 14,01,454 electorate eligible to cast their votes using EVMs, 7,44,468 were men and 6,56,986  women. Polling was held for 136 wards for the seats of mayor and members of municipal corporations and municipal committees, an official spokesperson of Haryana State Election Commission said.

Ahead of the next year's Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, prestige is at stake for ruling BJP, which contested the civic polls on the party symbol. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had campaigned extensively for party nominees in these polls. Opposition INLD-BSP, too, had fielded its candidates in these polls. While the Congress chose not to use party symbol to contest the polls, it lend support to some Independents.

In Karnal, Khattar's home constituency, increasing problems of saffron party candidate Renu Bala Gupta, INLD-BSP and the Congress had joined hands throwing their weight behind Independent candidate Asha Wadhwa. In a first, the mayors of the five municipal corporations will be elected directly. Earlier, the councillors used to elect the mayor.

In another significant move, the Haryana Election Commission had decided to treat 'none of the above' or NOTA option as a "fictional candidate" in the municipal polls, making it a must for winning candidates to secure more votes than those cast for NOTA. As many as 1,292 polling stations had been set up, out of which 304 were sensitive and 166 hyper-sensitive, the spokesperson said.