The State Election Commission would reschedule elections for 14,966 positions of Member village Panchayats and Pradhans in the three-tier Panchayati Raj elections. This is being necessitated because not even a single candidate remained in electoral fray for these positions.
The State Election Commissioner (SEC) Subardhan disclosed that 14,942 positions of Member village panchayat and 24 positions of Pradhans are left vacant. He said that the commission would now undertake a fresh electoral drive to fulfill these vacancies. The SEC said that these posts are left vacant because of no nomination and death of the aspirants after filing the nomination papers.
Almora district has 3,034 vacant positions of Member Village Panchayat while Pauri 2,740; Nainital 1,557, Tehri has 1,545 vacant positions for member village Panchayat. The positions of Member village Panchayat are the least favoured positions and the large number of the vacant positions is indicative of this. The SEC said that the commission would reschedule the polls for the vacant positions probably in the month of the August. He said that there is a constitutional obligation to fulfill at least two third positions of the members of village Panchayat and commission would schedule elections till the required number of positions is fulfilled.
In the panchayat polls the rural electorate directly elects the positions of members of village Panchayats, Village Pradhans, Members of Block Panchayat and Members of District Panchayat while the positions of Deputy Pradhan, Junior Deputy Pramukh, Senior Deputy Pramukh, Pramukh Block Panchayat, Vice President District Panchayat and President District Panchayat are indirectly elected by the elected representatives.