Polling begins for gram panchayat elections in Maharashtra

Polling for elections to over14,000 gram panchayats in 34 of the total 36 districts inMaharashtra began on a peaceful note on Friday morning, anofficial said.

The polls, being held with COVID-19 protocols inplace, will cover 34 districts barring Mumbai city and Mumbaisuburban districts.

There are 27,920 gram panchayats in Maharashtra.

Voting began at 7:30 am and will continue till 5:30 pmexcept in four tehsils in Gadchiroli, a Naxal-hit district,and Gondia district.

In these four tehsils, the voting will end at 3 pm.

Maharashtra State Election Commissioner UPS Madan onThursday said that there are 20,000-odd seats where membershave already been elected unopposed.

At least 14 Thane district villages have boycottedthe gram panchayat elections to press for their demand to be apart of the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation.

With 14 villages boycotting the elections, five grampanchayats in the district will not go to polls on Friday, theofficial said.

The State Election Commission (SEC) had on Wednesdayannounced cancellation of poll process in Umrane andKhondamali gram panchayats, in Nashik and Nandurbar districtsrespectively, after it received evidence of public auctioningof the posts of sarpanch and members of the local governingbodies.

The SEC has allowed those suffering from coronavirusinfection or those who are in quarantine to cast their votehalf-an-hour before the polling ends.

All the polling centres and material/equipment weresanitised in view of the pandemic, the commission said.

The gram panchayats are considered the third tier ofgovernance. Elections for them are not held on party lines,using party symbols. Candidates are allotted election symbolsfrom a list of free symbols.

The gram panchayat polls are being held more than amonth after the ruling MVAs victory in the graduates' andteachers' constituencies in the Legislative Council electionsthat took place late last year.

The MVA, which consists of the Shiv Sena, NCP andCongress, had won four out of six seats on offer, while twoothers were bagged by an Independent and the opposition BJP.

The districts and the district-wise number of grampanchayats where polling is being held are as follows: Thane(158), Palghar (3), Raigad (88), Ratnagiri (479), Sindhudurg(70), Nashik (620), Dhule (218), Jalgaon (783), Ahmednagar(767), Nandurbar (86), Pune (748), Solapur (658), Satara(879), Sangli (152), Kolhapur (433), Aurangabad (618), Beed(129), Nanded (1,015), Osmanabad (428), Parbhani (566), Jalna(475), Latur (408), Hingoli (495), Amravati (553), Akola(225), Yavatmal (980), Washim (152), Buldhana (527), Nagpur(130), Wardha (50), Chandrapur (629), Bhandara (148), Gondia(189) and Gadchiroli (362).

Counting of votes will be held on January 18.