Thaindian News

Mumbai, Feb 6 (IANS) The stage is set for elections to 27 Zilla Parishads and 305 panchayat samitis across Maharashtra which go to polls Tuesday amid tight security around the state, a top official said here Monday.

Nearly 3.89 crore voters will elect their new representatives for 1,624 zilla parishad seats and 3,218 panchayat samiti seats, for which respectively 7,116 and 13,473 candidates are in the fray, said State Election Commissioner Neela Satyanarayan.

“Everything is in place for the polling and all necessary arrangements have been made for the elections. I appeal to people to exercise their franchise without fear,” Satyanarayan said on poll-eve.

The SEC has set up 59,914 polling stations with nearly 1.38 lakh electronic voting machines.

Around 7,000 polling stations are considered sensitive, including those in the Maoist-infested Gadchiroli district of eastern Maharashtra, for which special security arrangements are in place.

Gadchiroli would have two-phase elections - areas like Korchi, Kurkheda, Desaiganj, Aarmori, Gadchiroli, Dhanora, Charmoshi and Mulchera would go to polls Tuesday, and other areas like Aheri, Etapalli, Bhamragad and Sironcha will elect their representatives Feb 12.

This would be followed by the elections to 10 top municipal corporations in the state scheduled Feb 16. They are Mumbai, Thane, Ulhasnagar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Solapur, Akola, Amravati and Nagpur.

The SEC has directed the state government to declare holidays for the polling on both Feb 7 and Feb 16.

Counting of votes shall be taken up simultaneously Feb 17 onwards.