The much awaited Panchyat elections in the state will be held in four phases from October 9 to October 29 in all the districts except Gautama Buddha nagar district comprising of NOIDA and Greater NOIDA. Counting of votes will be held on November 1. Gautam Buddh nagar district is governed by the provisions of the RsUP Industrial area authority Act 1975. The Allahabad high court in a recent order had declared the existence of the panchayat institutions in the districts as null and void.
With the issue of notification by the state government the State Election Commission (SEC) issued the detailed schedule of election on Monday. The election dates announced by the SEC are October 9, October 13, October 17 and October 29.
The SEC said with the issue of the elections notification the model code of conduct has come into force with immediate effect. During this period no government official will be transferred by the state government without the prior approval of the poll panel.
Out of the total electorate of 11.36 crore over half or 51.5 percent are in the age group of 18 to 35 years. Each voter of over 59,000 village panchayats will cast four votes for the panchyat election for four posts. The posts are —Village pradhan, member village council, and member kshetra panchyat and member district panchayat. The number of seats for kshetra panchayat are 77,576 and number of seats for member district panchayat is 3,112.
The elections will be in two parts first, the member of the kshetra panchyat or the block development committee and member district panchyat. The election of Gram Prdhan (village head) and for the village council members will be in the second part. The elected members of the district panchayat election will elect the chairman of the district panchayat while the elected members of the kshetra panchyat will elected the block pramukh. The election to both the post of chairman district panchyat and block pramukh will be held early next year in January.
The SEC has drawn elaborate plans for the peaceful conduct of the elections. As many as 78.596 polling centers and 1.70 crore polling boothe will be set up across the state in74 districts. The polling centers will be classified in three categories as sensitive, hyper sensitive and hyper sensitive plus. In any district the number of hyper sensitive plus category polling centers will not be more than 10 percent of the total polling center in each district. The district administration in each district as per the directive of the SEC will conduct ideography from the beginning to the end of the polling in the evening.
In view of the state assembly elections in Bihar, the Center has declined to provide central para military forces to the state. The panchayat elections will be conducted with the police force available with the state government. The force include 81,000 personals of district civil police, 4,676 from inter district civil police and 36,741 personals from police training centers. The auxiliary force includes 93,000 homeguartds, 13,000 from Pradesh Vikas dal and over 1 lakh village chowkidar. The state government will provide additional 130 companies of the PAC.
With the massive drive launched by the SEC for the revision of the electoral rolls the EP (elector/population) ratio has come down to 66.58 percent from 72 percent during the last panchayat elections in 2010. In 2010 the EP ratio was 100 percent in 2,749 village panchayats which is now nil. The 100 percent EP ratio implies that 100 percent of the village population is voter which is impossible as 18 years is the minimum age for being enrolled as a voter. During the roll revision names of 1.85 crore voters were deleted from the rolls while 2.13 crore names were added.