The voting for the gram panchayat elections in Punjab started amid tight security arrangements on Tuesday, officials said here. The officials said that voting for the posts of 'sarpanch' and 'panch' began at 8 am through ballot boxes and would continue till 4 pm. After the polling concludes, the officials added that the votes will be counted at the polling stations.
Polling at 19,110 booths
The polling is underway at 19,110 polling booths, out of which, 1,187 are marked as hyper-sensitive, for the election. It must be noted that there are 13,225 gram panchayats in the state. As per the officials, 9,398 gram panchayats will elect 'sarpanch'. Earlier, 3,798 candidates for the post of 'Sarpanch' were already elected unopposed, the officials said. As the polling began, elderly people, youth and women were seen standing in queues outside many polling booths in the morning.
First election without political party symbols
For the first time, the elections are being held without symbols of political parties as the Punjab assembly passed the Punjab Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Bill, 2024, last month which barred the candidates from using political party symbols.
1.33 crore voters to exercise franchise
According to the state EC officials, there are a total of 1.33 crore registered voters for the gram panchayat election. There are 25,588 candidates for the posts of 'sarpanch' and 80,598 for 'panch' posts in the fray, the officials said.
The state EC has deputed around 96,000 personnel on election duty. On Monday, Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann appealed to the people to exercise their franchise freely and fairly. Meanwhile, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday dismissed a bunch of petitions filed against the panchayat elections on several grounds, which included a challenge to delimitation, ward demarcation, grievances about poll symbols, extension of time for nominations, and rejection of nomination papers.
(With PTI inputs)
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