Voting for 1st phase of Panchayat polls in U’khand today – myuttarakhandnews.com | Uttarakhand News in English | Dehradun News Today| News Uttarakhand | Uttarakhand latest news

PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE | Dehradun The voting for the first phase in the three tier Panchayat elections in 12 districts of the State will be held on Thursday. The State Election Commission and the State administration have made all the preparations for smooth conduct of the polls. The voting will commence at 8 AM and will end at 5 PM. All the polling parties reached their respective booths on Wednesday.  In the first phase the voters will decide the fate of 878 candidates who are in fray for 201 posts of member district Panchayats. Similarly 5,044 candidates are in contention for 1,507 posts of member block Panchayat. A total of 9,835 candidates are seeking election on 3,393 posts of village Pradhan while 2247 candidates are in fray for 948 posts of member village Panchayat. In the first phase, a total of 17,829 candidates are in the fray. The voters will be provided with ballot papers of different colours. The ballot paper will be white for member village Panchayat, green for Pradhan, blue for member block Panchayat and pink for member district Panchayat.   As per the data of SEC, a total of 22,429 candidates have been elected unopposed in the three tier Panchayat bodies in 12 districts of the State. A total of 1,361 candidates have been elected unopposed for the post of Pradhan village Panchayat. Similarly 20,820 member village Panchayats have been elected unopposed. The Panchayat elections are being held in 89 blocks of 12 districts of the State barring Haridwar. For the two phased polls, the SEC has set up 8,276 polling stations and 10,529 polling booths. The services of 95,909 employees, 3,342 light vehicles and 2,278 heavy vehicles will be taken for the smooth conduction of the Panchayat polls in the State. The commission has deployed 55 general observers and 12 reserved observers in the elections.