EC announces dates for by-elections for vacant Panchayat seats in J&K

SRINAGAR — The Election Commission (EC) on Thursday announced that by-elections for over 12,500 vacant Panchayat seats in Jammu and Kashmir will be conducted from March 05 to March 20, 2020.

The announcement was made by the Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Shailendra Kumar during a press conference in Jammu region on Thursday afternoon.

Addressing media persons, the CEO said that elections for the vacant 12,565 Panchayat seats will be held in eight phases.

“The first phase of polling will take place on March 05, while the second phase is scheduled for March 07. The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eight phases of voting will take place on March 09, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 respectively,” he said.

“Panchayat elections for vacant posts of every block will be held using ballot boxes. It will be conducted in eight phases,” Kumar said, adding that “from now onwards, the Model Code of Conduct is enforced and it will be implementable in all the places where elections are being held.”

He added that in Jammu division, the elections will be conducted in four phases while in Kashmir, it will be held in eight phases. Kumar said that no request has been received over the conducting of polls in Ladakh.

“Union Territory of Ladakh has not yet sent us a request for the conduct of elections so we have not included Ladakh,” he stated.

This will be the first major political exercise in Jammu and Kashmir following the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status (Article 370) and bifurcation of the erstwhile State into two Union Territories—J&K and Ladakh on August 05 last year by the Central government.