Campaigning for elections to 10,879 village panchayats in Gujarat ended on Friday, which are expected to be the final significant procedure for political parties before the Assembly elections in December next year.
The village panchayat polls, which are not fought on party symbols even though candidates are affiliated with parties, will be held on Sunday using 54,000 ballot boxes instead of EVMs due to the large number of wards, officials said, and the results will be announced on Tuesday.
According to NK Damor, joint commissioner of the State Election Commission, campaigning ended on Friday.
According to the SEC, of the 10,879 village panchayats, 10,117 will have their five-year terms expire in December, while polls will be held in 65 panchayats due to the splitting or dissolution of existing bodies, and bypolls in 697 panchayats where seats became vacant for a variety of reasons.
Nearly 2.06 crore voters will choose 10,284 sarpanchs and 89,702 panchayat members from these 10,879 gramme panchayats, though 1,267 gramme panchayats have been declared ‘samras,’ or “fully uncontested,” because only one candidate remained on December 7, the deadline for withdrawal of nominations.
More than 5,000 election officials, 1.5 lakh poll workers, and over 58,000 police officers will be deployed, according to officials.
In the 2017 Assembly elections, which the BJP won with a smaller vote share, urban voters favoured the saffron party, while rural voters largely supported the Congress.