Four districts may not go to panchayat polls

The four districts of Moradabad, Shamli, Gautam Buddh Nagar and Gonda may not join the rest of the state when the village panchayat polls are held in October-November.

This is because these four districts have not been able to complete the village panchayat reorganisation exercise even as the state election commission’s deadline expired on May 15. The commission had made it clear to the panchayati raj department that it would not hold village panchayat polls in the districts that failed to complete the reorganization exercise within the deadline.

During a meeting on Saturday, it was found that the reorganisation exercise was yet to be completed in Moradabad, Shamli, Gautam Buddh Nagar and Gonda for different reasons.

And if the polls are held in the four districts at all with the rest of the state, they will be conducted on the previous pattern unlike in 71 other districts where around 6,000 new panchayats were created following reorganisation. Otherwise, the polls in these four districts will be held six months after the October-November election.

In Moradabad and Shamli, the reorganization of village panchayats is incomplete because of the rural development department not taking a call on the boundaries of a development block that falls in both the districts. The exercise in Gonda is not complete yet for other reasons. The case of Gautam Buddh Nagar is different as the government itself decided not to conduct the reorganisation in the district. A large number of villages in the district fall in the industrial development authority area. The government had made up its mind not to hold panchayat polls in such villages. Now both the parties, proposing and opposing the polls, have moved the high court.