There is a constitutional compulsion for the creation of new Gram Panchayats before March 29 and the election commission would complete the process within time, Subardhan, the State Election Commissioner of Uttarakhand, said this while speaking with media persons here on Tuesday.
The State election commission was scheduled to notify the Panchayat election on February 11, but the Uttarakhand High Court’s decision to defer the election process by ten days has forced it to postpone the notification.
The State Government had pleaded for deferment of polls on the grounds that the State would loose some funds meant for disaster affected people if the elections are scheduled on time.
Subardhan said that the commission is fully geared to successfully conduct the mammoth exercise of the three-tier panchayat polls in the State. He said that ballot papers for the elections have been printed and dispatched. The State Election commissioner said that the new dates of the entire poll process would be declared soon, but he hinted that the election process would be completed before March 24 as the board examinations are scheduled to start on that date.
He said that after the new delimitation exercise the number of village Panchayats in the twelve districts (barring Haridwar) of Uttarakahnd have increased from 7,389 to 7,666. A total of 46,91,003 voters would exercise their franchise in the panchayat elections out which 23,13,900 are females and 23,77,103 are male voters.
A voter would be given four ballot papers and the colors of which have been kept different for the benefit of the rural electorate. The color of ballot paper for the Member Village Panchayat would be white, for Pradhan green, for Member Block Panchayat blue and for Member district Panchayat pink ballots would be used.
The polling parties would be provided with two ballot boxes, the ballots of Member Village Panchayat and Pradhans would be put in one ballot box while the ballot papers of Member Block Panchayat and member district Panchayat would be collected in second ballot box.