Uttar Pradesh Gram Panchayat Election 2021 Phase-2 Polling tomorrow: Voting for the second phase of the UP panchayat polls will be held tomorrow (April 19, Monday). More than 3.48 lakh candidates are in the fray for more than 2.23 lakh posts in 20 districts and essential cities which includes Varanasi and Lucknow. Polling will start from 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. Among the districts that will go to polls in the second phase are Amroha, Azamgarh, Etawah, Etah, Chitrakoot, Kannauj, Gonda, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Pratapgarh, Budaun, Baghpat, Bijnor, Muzaffarnagar, Mainpuri, Maharajganj, Lakhimpur Kheri, Lalitpur and Sultanpur. About 3.23 crore voters are eligible to exercising their franchise.
There are 11,483 candidates in fray for 787 posts of members of zila panchayats. As lots of as 85,232 candidates are in the fray for the 19,653 seats of kshetra panchayats. There are 1,21,906 candidates for 14,897 posts of gram panchayats. For the gram panchayat wards, there are as lots of as 1,30,305 candidates for 1,87,781 posts.
PTI reports that more than 2.31 lakh poll officials have been deployed by the State Election Commission (SEC) for a smooth conduct of the panchayat polls. In the 1st phase of the polls held on April 15, an typical polling percentage of 71 was recorded. The last panchayat polls held in 2015 had registered a polling percentage of 72.11.
In view of the Covid-19 circumstance, the state commission had mentioned last month that not more than 5 people today would be permitted to accompany a candidate throughout door-to-door campaigning for the panchayat elections. According to PTI, added election commissioner Ved Prakash Verma mentioned that the 3-member teams have been formed below the added district magistrates to guarantee that the directives issued by the commission have been becoming followed.
At the district level, the chief health-related officers have been produced the nodal officers and tension has been laid on infection prevention. Voters will have to put on masks and sustain social distancing at the polling booths. The commission has also issued guidelines to make circles preserving a distance of six feet in between the voters standing in the queue. The social distancing norms would also be followed throughout the counting of votes and individual protective gear kits would be arranged according to the specifications.