The process of holding panchayat elections is likely to be expedited as the Allahabad High Court has directed the UP government and state’s election commission to conduct the polls by April 30. The court said that elections of the district panchayat president and the block chief should be conducted by May 15.
Official sources said that the elections are likely to be conducted in four phases and the process of caste-based reservation of seats is expected to be completed early next month. The poll notification is likely to be issued in the third week of March.
The sources said that the elections will be completed in the next 45 days after the poll notification is issued. The elections are likely to be held between April 15 and April 30.
The state government intends to hold simultaneous polls for the village pradhan, block pramukh, members of block development committee and district panchayat. There are a total of 58,194 village panchayats. There are 3,051 district panchayat members, 75,855 block development committee members and over 7.31 lakh village panchayat members. For the panchayat election, the number of voters is estimated to be 12 crore.
Meanwhile, the Panchayat department on Monday said that UP has achieved number one position in the implementation of Swachh Bharat mission (rural) by constructing maximum number of toilets in 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20. A total of 2.18 crore toilets have been constructed. The Union ministry of drinking water and sanitation declared all the 75 districts open defecation-free in 2018, one year ahead of the targeted date of October 2, 2019.