UP Panchayat Elections: 2.33 Lakh Candidates in Fray for Second Phase in 20 Districts

As the nomination for the second phase of UP Panchayat Election comes to a close in UP, 2.33 candidates are in the fray for all the posts in 20 districts of the state, the Election Commission said in a statement.

Of these, 8,024 candidates are in the fray for 787 zilla panchayat wards. At the same time, 56,874 candidates are in the fray for 19,653 posts of Kshetra Panchayat ward members.

Similarly, 99,404 candidates for the 14,897 posts of Village Heads. Only 69,314 nominations have been made for the 1,87,781 posts of Gram Panchayat Ward members.

According to the commission, the scrutiny of nomination papers will be done till Saturday. Candidates will be able to withdraw their nomination by 11 April.

The districts that will go to polls in the second phase include Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Gautam Budh Nagar, Bijnor, Amroha, Badaun, Etah, Mainpuri, Kannauj, Etawah, Lalitpur, Chitrakoot, Pratapgarh, Lucknow, Lakhimpur Kheri, Sultanpur, Gonda, Maharajganj, Varanasi and Azamgarh.

One of the pertinent points in this phase is the number of nominations for gram panchayat ward members. For the 1,87,781 gram panchayat ward members, only 69,314 nominations were filed. 1,18,467 posts have not seen any nomination. Now the Election Commission will have to conduct a by-election for these posts.

There are many such Gram Panchayats, where nominations have not been made to the posts of Gram Panchayat members in most of the wards. In such a situation, the formation of these gram panchayats has been delayed because until two-thirds of the gram panchayat members are not there, even though the village head has been elected there, he cannot hold the post.

Before this, even in the first phase, there were no nominations for 77589 posts. Nomination of 1505 more candidates were cancelled while 206 others withdrew their nominations, after which 1,07,283 candidates were left to contest. It is worth noting that there are a large number of candidates who will be elected unopposed this time.

In the first phase, there are many candidates in 18 districts who will win without unopposed. Among them, one Zilla Panchayat member, 550 Kshetra Panchayat members, 85 Gram Pradhan and 69541 Gram Panchayat members have been declared as unopposed winners.

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