Gandhinagar, Apr 1 Elections to local self-government bodies in Gujarat, including 15 municipal corporations, will be held on April 26 for nearly 10,000 seats, with vote counting scheduled for April 28, the State Election Commission (SEC) announced on Wednesday.
State Election Commissioner S Murali Krishna said over 4.18 crore voters will be eligible to exercise their franchise in the polls, which will cover 34 district panchayats, 260 taluka panchayats, and 84 municipalities, in addition to the 15 municipal corporations.
The municipal corporations going to the polls include important Gujarat cities like Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, and Jamnagar. Nine of these corporations are new and were formed just last year.
In total, polling will be held for 9,992 seats across Gujarat.
Speaking to reporters, Krishna informed that seat allocation will be done according to the new rules for Other Backward Class (OBC) reservations, which necessitated extensive delimitation and boundary changes across several districts.
According to the schedule released by the SEC, the notification for the polls will be issued on April 6, while the last date for filing nominations is April 11. Scrutiny of nominations will take place on April 13, and candidates can withdraw their papers until April 15.
Voting will be held between 7 am and 6 pm on April 26. If necessary, re-polling will be conducted on April 27, and vote counting will take place on April 28. The entire election process is expected to be completed by April 30.
Krishna said the SEC will take into account the final electoral roll published by the Election Commission recently, following the recently concluded Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
The SEC said the implementation of the new OBC reservation quota has significantly impacted the structure of the polls. Of the 34 district panchayats going to the elections, Vav-Tharad is newly formed, 24 have undergone delimitation, and nine will see rotation of seats.
To ensure smooth conduct of polls, 49,591 polling stations will be set up across the state, with a limit of 1,200 voters per booth. Around 11,000 polling stations have been identified as sensitive, and 3,300 as hyper-sensitive, according to the election panel.
Polling will be conducted using Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), with multi-choice machines for urban local bodies and single-choice ones for rural panchayats. More than 2.61 lakh polling personnel will be deployed, supervised by 996 Returning Officers and 1,266 Assistant Returning Officers, according to the SEC.
Voters will be required to carry their Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC) to exercise their franchise. In its absence, 14 alternative photo identity documents, including PAN card, driving licence, and passport, will be accepted, Krishna said.