Voting for over 8,900 village panchayats to choose ward members and Sarpanches completed peacefully in Gujarat with nearly 73 per cent turnout on Tuesday.
Results of the polls, projected as semi-finals ahead of Gujarat Assembly elections, to be held in the second half of 2017 will be declared on Thursday. Moreover, outcome of the village panchayat polls would indicate mood of the voters in the Prime Minister’s home-State as it is the first major poll post demonetisation of Rs500 and Rs1,000 denomination currency notes.
last month, ruling BJP won 107 out of 123 seats of local bodies that went for by-elections. The ruling party was upbeat and in its official release stated that the people of Gujarat hailed the PM Modi’s decision of demonetisation. The party had also won in two municipalities and one taluka panchayat along with majority seats of various other local bodies.
However, the Opposition Congress party ruled out the claims of BJP saying that by-polls cannot be the barometer for the popularity of any political party.
Sources in the state election commission informed that 1325 Gram Panchayats out of the 10,279 scheduled for the polls were already declared ‘Samaras’ (candidate selected unopposed or in consensus) and hence polls were conducted in 8954 village panchayats. Of these 483 Sarpanches have already elected unopposed. In order to maintain peace during the polls over 50,000 policemen were deployed. More than 1.35 lakh polling staff too was deployed to conduct the elections.
For other village panchayats, 26813 candidates are in fray for the posts of Sarpanches. For other ward members post total 1, 20, 936 candidates are contesting the polls. There are more than 1.65 crore eligible voters. Of the total 22,382 polling booths, 9557 were declared as sensitive and polling conducted there amid high security.
17347 people would involve at 252 different places for counting of votes on Thursday, said a top official with the state election commission, adding that two villages situated in Mahisagar district in Central Gujarat and Banaskantha district in Banaskantha will go for repealing on Wednesday due to demise of candidates.
Though the village panchayat polls are not fought on party symbols, but in most of the villages generally candidates backed by some or other parties – mainly BJP or Congress in the case of Gujarat. Each voter was eligible to cast two votes – one to choose Sarpanch and another to elect panchayat member for his ward. For this election, there were 53116 wards.