GP elections: 8,687 members to be elected unopposed

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.