Chandigarh, June 5 (IANS) Ahead of the panchayat (village council) polls June 6 and June 12 in 13 districts of Haryana, over 40 percent of council members and over three percent of council headmen have been elected unopposed, officials said Saturday.
State Election Commissioner Dharam Vir said 1.4 percent members of panchayat samitis (council committees) have also been elected unopposed.
‘A total of 15,579 panches (council members) out of 38,596 contestants have been elected unanimously. Whereas 134 sarpanches (headmen) out of 3,971 candidates and 25 members of panchayat samitis out of 1,792 have already been elected unopposed,’ said Vir.
On June 6 and June 12, elections would be held in Ambala, Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Faridabad, Jind, Jhajjar, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Mahendergarh (at Narnaul), Sirsa, Sonepat, Mewat (at Nuh) and Palwal districts.
The official said 6,398,342 voters of the 13 districts would exercise their franchise to elect 244 members of zila parishads (district-level bodies) and members of panchayat samitis, panches and sarpanches.
The elections for sarpanches would be conducted with electronic voting machines (EVMs), for which about 14,000 machines would be used.
At least 12,566 polling booths would be set up for the elections and the time of the polling would be 7.30 a.m. to 4 p.m., he added.
‘Additional security arrangements have been made at sensitive polling booths,’ Vir said.
‘To ensure fair and peaceful conduct of panchayat elections, arrangements of supervisors and police teams have been made in such a manner that they can patrol each polling booth every hour and could reach a polling booth within 10-15 minutes in case of an emergency,’ he said.
