- NET Web Desk
The Arunachal Pradesh State Election Commission today announced that bye-elections to 130 Gram Panchayat Constituencies (GPCs) along with one Zilla Parishad seat will be held on July 12.
Addressing the mediapersons, the State Election Commissioner (SEC) – Hage Kojeen mentioned that polling across 40 gram panchayat seats and one in zilla parishad at Vijoynagar administrative sub-division under Changlang district have been kept pending due to law and order and other administrative concerns.
Kojeen said that 11 seats have been excluded from the election process due to court cases pending before the Election Tribunal and Itanagar bench of Gauhati High Court.
The seats where elections will be held fell vacant due to a variety of factors, including – rejection of nomination papers during the December 2020 local bodies elections, lack of eligible candidates, disqualification under anti-defection laws, death or resignation of several winning candidates, he said.
A total of 7000 voters will be able to exercise their right to vote; during the bye-elections slated to take place at 101 polling stations spread across 20 districts of the frontier state.
Lower Subansiri has the most vacancies among the districts, with 41 gram panchayat seats, followed by 11 in Upper Subansiri, nine in Lower Dibang Valley, seven each in East Siang and West Siang, and six each in East and West Kameng, he said.
The notification for the panchayat by-poll will be released on June 14, and the deadline for registering nominations has been set for June 21. The papers will be scrutinized on June 23, with the deadline for withdrawing documents set for June 27, he added.
Counting of votes would be held on July 16, Kojeen added.
“A consultative meeting with the state government was held recently wherein relevant issues, including security arrangements were discussed to ensure free, fair and peaceful election,” he said.
More than 500 election officials will be involved in the panchayat by-poll excluding security personnel. The SEC has urged to all stakeholders and political parties to provide their assistance to the free, fair, and peaceful conduct of the by-elections.