Voting underway for Gujarat panchayat polls

Polling was underway on Sunday at more than 23,000 booths for elections to 8,690 village panchayats in Gujarat, with tight security arrangements and COVID-19 protocols in place, officials said.

The polls are being seen as a major test for political parties ahead of the Gujarat Assembly elections due in December next year. A gram panchayat election is fought by a candidate in his/her personal capacity and not on symbol of any political party. The candidate, however, remains affiliated to one party or another.

On Sunday, voters queued up since 7 am to elect heads of various village panchayats and ward member. The polling will continue till 6 pm. Counting of votes will be held on December 21. A total 27,200 candidates are in the fray for the elections of sarpanch and 1,19,998 for panchayat members.

As many as 1,165 village panchayats and 9,613 wards were declared as ”totally uncontested”, where representatives were elected unopposed, as per the Gujarat State Election Commission. Such panchayats are called ‘samras’ in Gujarat.

Besides, 473 sarpanchs have been elected in a ”partially uncontested” process (where only one candidate for the post of sarpanch was left after withdrawal of nominations while polls for other seats were being held), it said.

In the gram panchayat polls, each voter is required to cast two votes, one to elect sarpanch and another for electing a panchayat member for his ward.

Polling is being held across 23,112 booths using ballot boxes instead of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) due to a very high number of wards, the state election body said. As many as 37,451 ballot boxes are being used for the election, it said.

A total over 1.81 crore voters will exercise their franchise, including 93.6 lakh men and 88.3 lakh women, it said.

The Election Commission has made security arrangements at around 10,000 polling booths that have been declared as sensitive and extremely sensitive.