Maha: Polls to 12 ZPs, 125 Panchayat samitis likely in first week of Feb

Mumbai: Elections to 12 Zilla Parishads (ZPs) and 125 panchayat samitis in Maharashtra are likely to be held in the first week of February, sources said on Friday.

The Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) is expected to announce the dates of these elections next week.

On January 6, the SEC will hold a meeting of the officials from the districts that are expected to go to polls in the third phase.

The poll body will take stock of the preparations, availability of the electronic voting machines (EVMs) and poll machinery for the third phase during the review meeting.

After that, the decision on the election date is expected to be taken before the polls are announced in the second week of January.

The SEC has to complete the election process for the polls well ahead of

February 10, the date of the commencement of Class 12 exams.

“We will need around 28 days to complete the poll process. We are expecting the supply of the new EVMs from Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL) to begin after January 15. Once the manpower is freed from the municipal corporations, we can engage them in the district council elections,” an SEC official said.

“We need at least 70,000 EVMs for 35,000 polling booths and over 1.5 lakh officials and employees to conduct the polls. Since we are not able to announce the polls for the third phase before January 8, elections to district councils and Panchayat samitis are expected to be held in the first week of February. This will result in the breaching of the SC deadline of January 31, but we will put up our difficulties before it during the next hearing on January 21,” an official from the SEC said.

The SC, in its orders in November and December, directed the SEC to hold elections for municipal corporations, Nagar Panchayats and municipal councils even if they have been exceeding the cap of 50 per cent reservation.