Following Supreme Court’s verdict to uphold the validity of recent amendments making minimum educational qualifications a prerequisite for contesting panchayat polls in Haryana, the State Election Commission on Thursday said it will soon set in motion the process for conduct of panchayat polls.
Haryana State Election Commissioner Rajeev Sharma on Thursday said that the EC would send a proposal to the State Government immediately after we get the operative part of the Supreme Court judgement.
“After holding a discussion with the government, the process of holding the panchayat polls, which had been put on hold in view of the Apex Court hearing the petition, will be set in motion once again,” he said.
The Commission had on September 8 issued the programme for the conduct of elections to Panchayati Raj institutions in the state. According to the programme, the panchayat polls were to be conducted in three phases - October 4, 11 and 18.
As the matter was pending before the Supreme Court, the state EC had decided to put on hold all the activities in pursuant to Commission’s notification dated September 8 and all other notifications/orders issued subsequently, Sharma said.
The model code of conduct was put on hold from September 24 in view of the Supreme Court hearing the petition pertaining to the validity of the educational qualifications for the candidates contesting panchayat polls in Haryana.
There are a total of 6,197 gram panchayats, 123 panchayat samitis and 20 zila parishads in Haryana. The elections would be conducted for 393 posts of members of 20 zila parishads, 2,932 posts of 123 panchayat samitis, and 6,197 and 62,471 posts of sarpanches and panches, respectively.
As many as 1,10,09,317 people are eligible to cast their ballot in these elections, of which 59,04,696 are men and 51,04,621 are women.