Voting for phase 4 of J&K panchayat elections today
5,470 candidates in the fray for 339 sarpanch and 1,749 for panch seats; polling to be held at 2,618 booths
JAMMU: Voting for phase 4 of the Jammu and Kashmir panchayat polls will be held on Tuesday at 2,618 polling stations of which 639 are in the Kashmir division and 1,979 in the Jammu division.
The voting will take place from 8am to 2pm.
J&K chief electoral officer Shaleen Kabra said 5,470 candidates are in the fray for 339 sarpanch and 1,749 for the panch seats this time, with 99 sarpanches and 969 panches having been elected unopposed.
As many as 777 polling stations have been categorised as hypersensitive of which 571 are in Kashmir division and the rest in the Jammu division, he said.
He said as many as 4,72,160 people will vote for the seats of sarpanches while 3,32,502 will exercise their franchise for the seats of panches.
“Photo voter slips have been distributed among the voters to inform them about the polling station they will cast their vote,” he said. Kabra said senior government officers have been appointed as general observers to oversee the polling process. Also, expenditure observers are keeping a watch on the expenditure by the candidates, he added.
The National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the two main parties of the state, have boycotted the elections over alleged “lack of clarity” around the Centre’s stand on legal challenges in the Supreme Court to J&K’s special status.
Both the parties had not contested October’s urban local body polls over the same issue. The separatists have also asked people to observe a day-long strike against the polls.
On Monday, police took Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Yasin Malik in custody.
Militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen had in January warned former panchayat members against contesting the elections. More than half a dozen panchayat houses were either damaged or set on fire by suspected militants after dates for the polls were announced in September.
Sixteen sarpanches (panchayat heads) and panchs (panchayat members) have been killed by militants in the last four years, which security officials said was one of the reasons why candidates were not campaigning openly.