As many as 8,687 candidates are all set to be elected unopposed in the forthcoming gram panchayat elections.
Revealing this at a media interaction programme here on Wednesday, State Election Commissioner P.N. Srinivasachari said that apart from this, 901 seats will remain vacant as no nominations have been received for these seats.
Boycott
Admitting that residents of several districts including Kolar, Chamarajnagar, Chikkamagaluru and North Karnataka had boycotted the polls, he said it was either because of lack of basic amenities, particularly drinking water, and a demand to upgrade the existing gram panchayats (GP) into town panchayats.
“Seats in panchayats that have been boycotted will go uncontested now. We will subsequently conduct polls in these places too,” he said.
Elaborate arrangements
The Commission has made elaborate arrangements for the smooth conduct of the two-phased polls to be held on May 29 and June 2. “We will begin mustering for the first phase tomorrow (on Thursday) and the ballot boxes and other election paraphernalia will be handed over to the designated poll officers on the same day. Polling will be held between 7 am and 5 pm on May 29,” Mr. Srinivasachari said.
On the reported auctioning of seats in some villages, he said this had been reported only in a few gram panchayats. “We have instructed the deputy commissioners to conduct a probe. However, when the DCs went to those areas none came forward to give a written complaint. We will have to consider these seats as elected unopposed,” he said.
The polls in numbers
Total number of contestants – 2,33,493
Members to be elected unopposed – 8,687
Seats left vacant due to non-submission of nominations – 901
Number of polling stations – 37,754
Sensitive polling stations – 8515
Hypersensitive polling stations – 6167
Total voters – 2,78,50,874
Male voters – 1,41,80,139
Women voters – 1,36,70,735
Total polling staff – 188770
Police force deployed for bandobast – 39,891
Additional reserve police force – 582
Home guards – 18,879
Poll timings – 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
