SEC to conduct Panchayat polls by year-end

Aiming to conduct statewide Panchayati Elections in the month of November-December, State Election Commission on Friday held first phase of training programme cum seminar of Block Development Officers (BDO’s), Panchayati Raj Officials and the dedicated team formed at the state level to carry out the huge exercise to accomplish the election process with integrity, zero error and within the time frame. “Presently delimitation work of every ward in each of the districts has been done completing the draft publication for the same,” said State Election Commissioner Shiv Basant. Final publication of the draft is to be done till April 30, 2015, he added.

The BDOs and Panchayat officials were trained to prepare electoral roll, settin up polling booths as well as determine reservation for the wards, deciding on the percentage of population ratio for a particular ward, Basant said. “Census of 1993 has been set as a base for giving reservation to a particular ward,” he said. According to Basant, smooth draft publication of delimitation was made possible due to thorough training programme conducted by the Commission for which very less objections were raised. Each and every objection however, was properly addressed without giving anyone a chance to complaint further, he added.  

Basant further added that the delimitation process for 8 Municipal constituencies where elections are due in the year 2015 has already been completed. “The elections are likely to be conducted to those constituencies in the month of May-June,” said the SEC.  According to the official data provided by the State Election Commissioner, as many as 10,000 wards have been added in the 263 blocks of the state making a total count to 54,413 where the elections will be conducted in five phases as was done earlier. One booth for each of the ward is to be set up for voting, he said.

An action plan was also released by the State Election Commission for state functionaries completing the final process of elections by setting up for polling booths till June 15, 2015. According the State Election Commissioner, General Municipal Elections are due at eight places where elections are to be conducted in the May-June. “Those places include Doeghar, Dhanbad, Chas, Jhumri Tilayya, Bishrampur, Majhiyaon and Chakradharpur while by-elections are due at five places—Ranchi, Adityapur, Palamu, Phusro, and Jamtara,” Basant said. As phase-wise municipal elections are conducted in the state, elections for 28 seats were held in the year 2013 while on the rest of 8 seats will be conducted in 2015, added Basant.