Results for the three-phase Uttarakhand Panchayat elections will be declared on Monday, October 21. Counting of close to 30 lakh votes cast in over 7000 gram panchayats will begin at 8 am and continue till the completion of the process.
Counting of votes may spill over to Tuesday in some of the bigger districts like Udham Singh Nagar. Election officials have been deployed and adequate security arrangements made for the counting.
Panchayat elections were held in state’s 12 districts except Haridwar on October 5, 11 and 16. The election schedule for Haridwar is two years behind and is likely to be held before December next year as per the direction of the Uttarakhand High Court.
15338 candidates from the 2014 Panchayat elections were debarred from contesting this time by the Election Commision for failing to file details of election expenses in time. According to Uttarakhand Election Commission, the expenditure limit for the village council head (Pradhan Gram Panchayat) post is Rs 18,000 and Rs 1,00,000 for district council president (Zila Parishad Adhyaksh).
As per election commission, Uttarakhand has 49785 available posts for village council members, 7541 posts for the heads of village councils, 3295 posts for members of Chetra panchayat or Block Development Committees (BDCs) and 402 posts for the members of Jila Panchayat.
The Election Commission has clarified that ballot papers mistakenly put in the wrong boxes will also be counted. The commission’s decision follows incidents of confusion among voters due to presence of two ballot boxes in every booth aimed to collect votes cast for Panchayat heads and members and heads of Block Development Committees (BDC) separately. Final results for every seat will only be declared after votes from both the ballot boxes have been counted and reconciled.
Votes for Panchayat heads and members will be counted first followed by the votes for BDC and Zilla Panchayat seats.
Congress and the BJP are the main political parties in the fray. The Uttarakhand BJP had expelled 90 of its rebel leaders for alleged anti-party activities and for contesting against official candidates in the Panchayat polls.
