Haryana gears up for panchayat polls

Haryana State Election Commission has made all the arrangements for peaceful, free and fair conduct of first phase of 5th Panchayat General Elections to be held on January 10 in the state.
While stating this here today, State Election Commissioner Rajeev Sharma said that elections would be held for 26,248 wards of Panches, 2,583 posts of Sarpanches, 1,221 wards of Panchayat Samitis and 416 wards of Zila Parishads.
He said that a total of 25,454 candidates are in the fray for Panches including 15,484 men and 9,970 women.
In the first phase, 7,078 men and 5,502 women have been elected panches unopposed.

Similarly, 11,485 candidates including 7,303 men and 4,182 women are contesting elections for 2,583 posts of Sarpanches.
He said that 36 men and 28 women candidates have been elected unopposed for the post of Sarpanches.

He said that a total of 4,908 candidates including 3,253 men and 1,655 women are contesting elections for 1,221 wards of Panchayat Samitis.
He said that Members of 28 wards have been elected unopposed which included 9 men and 19 women candidates.
Similarly, a total of 3,359 candidates including 2,087 men and 1,272 women candidates are contesting elections for 416 wards of Zila Parishad.
In the first phase, no candidate has been elected unanimously for Zila Parishads.

Sharma said that apart from security personnel, 1,07,675 employees have been deployed on election duty.
Apart from this, 1,256 Supervisors, 1,065 Duty Magistrates, Election Expenditure Supervisor and General Supervisors have also been deployed.
The State Election Commissioner has urged the voters to vote without any fear.
As many as 1,10,09,317 voters could participate in the panchayat elections including 59,04,696 men and 51,04,621 women.