State Election Commission completes all formalities to announce Panchayat Elections scheduled on Nov 10; announcements expected on Oct 11
GANGTOK, 10 Oct: The State Election Commission has completed all the formalities to announce its two tiers of Panchayat election scheduled to be held on November 10.
The formal Code of Conduct to ensue Panchayat election is expected to announce on 11 October afternoon, hinted State Election Commissioner.
While speaking to All India Radio Gangtok, K C Lepcha, State Election Commissioner, said that all the formalities have been completed and elections for 122 Zilla Panchayats and 197 Gram Panchayat Units will be held as per the scheduled time. Further he added that in 1147 Polling Stations around 207708 male voters and 202243 female voters from across the rural areas of Sikkim will be exercising their adult franchises.
He further informed that in six districts across the State there are 194 polling stations for Gyalshing district, 200 Polling Stations for Soreng district, 331 polling stations for Namchi district, 130 polling Stations in Gangtok district, 164 districts for Pakyong and 128 polling stations are in Mangan district.
The process of delimitation of territorial and Gram Panchayats are over, the State Election Commission eyeing to proceed the two tiers of Panchayat polls from tomorrow and poll is expected to be held just after Diwali on November 10, next month.
The tenure of the sitting Panchayats will over by November 10, however the polling dates are yet to be finalized, the SEC informed saying that the dates for October cannot be confirmed in view of the ongoing monsoon season. However, the Panchayat polls could possibly completed around second week of November.
C S Rao, Principal Secretary of Rural Development Department informed that the delimitation of Wards Panchayat [WP], Gram Panchayat Units [GPU], and Territorial wards for Zilla Panchayat [ZP] is over and the same has been notified with slight increase than 2017 seats based on population ratio and also seat reservation for upcoming Panchayati election have been notified today. 50 percent of total seats have been vertically and horizontally reserved for women across the reserved categories of all the sections of society to ensure equal representation in grass root level governance.
The territorial wards for Zilla Panchayat have been increased to 122 from 113 [18 for Gyalshing, 17 for Soreng, 30 for Namchi, 15 for Gangtok, 19 for Pakyong, 23 for Mangan Districts]. In comparison to 2017 list of territorial wards, 9 more seats have been added.
Similarly, 14 new Gram Panchayat Units have been created in the new delimitation process. The 183 Gram Panchayat Units in 2017 have been increased to 197 in 2022 [33 for Gyalshing, 36 for Soreng, 54 for Namchi, 23 for Gangtok, 28 for Pakyong, 23 for Mangan Districts] excluding two Dzumsa of North Sikkim, of which election will be held every year as per the tradition. The Dzumsa was included in the Panchayatiraj system after having its unique nomenclature of traditional way of functioning.
Written by by Bishnu Neopaney.
