As many as 481 of the total 517 Gram Panchayats spread over ten taluks in the district will go to polls in the first phase on May 29. Polling will be held for the wards with more than one contestant in the electoral fray.
Announcing the calendar of events and issuance of notification for conducting elections to the GPs, Deputy Commissioner and District Election Officer N. Jayaram said here on Monday that the nomination process commenced today and the last date of filing nominations is May 18. Scrutiny of nomination paper will be taken up on May 19 and the last date of withdrawal is May 21.
Polling will be conducted on May 29 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. If necessary, re-polling would be held on May 31. Counting of ballots would be taken up on June 5 at respective taluk centres from 8 a.m. onwards.
He said after the latest delimitation of Gram Panchayat constituencies, the total strength of GPs in the district had gone up (from 485 in 2010) to 517 GPs, of which elections were being conducted for 481 GPs. Elections for the remaining 36 GPs would be conducted after completion of their term after August.
Of the total 8,455 seats in 481 GPs, 1,066 seats have been reserved for the Scheduled Castes (688 for women), 870 for the Scheduled Tribes (639 for women), 1,723 for the backward classes category A (979 for women), 439 for backward class category B (222 for women), and 4,357 seats for the general category (1,891 for women).
Taluk-wise GPs going to polls on May 29 shows 56 in Belagavi, Khanapur-51, Hukkeri-49, Bailhongal-48, Savadatti-40, Ramdurg-34, Gokak-57, Chikkodi-64, Raibag-32 and Athani-50.
There are 23,45,906 voters (11,37,861 women voters) eligible to exercise their franchise in the 481 GPs. A total of 2,942 polling stations will be set up, of which 653 are categorised as sensitive and 525 as hyper-sensitive. As many as 43 Nodal Officers/Special Executive Magistrates had been appointed for as many hobli centres in the district.
