Bhopal: Amid the anticipation of a possible third wave of Covid-19 in Madhya Pradesh, the State Election Commission announced the dates for the three-tier Panchayat elections on Saturday, the polls to be held in three phases.
Addressing a press conference here, state election commissioner Basant Pratap Singh said that the voting for the first phase will take place on January 6 while the second and the third phases of the voting would be held on January 28 and February 16 respectively.
Just two days ago, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had instructed the officials for being on alert as Covid positive cases are being reported in the state and a threat is looming over the outbreak of Omnicron, the new variant of Covid-19.
On Friday, Additional Chief Secretary Health Mohammad Suleman also said to the health officials to be prepared for anticipating the third wave of Coronavirus by the middle of January 2022. According to Singh, the elections will be held for 859 district panchayat members, 6727 Janpad Panchayat members, 22581 Sarpanch, and 362754 Panch.
"With the announcement of the elections, the model code of conduct has come into vogue," the state election commissioner(SEC) said.
The tenure of the 114-Gram Panchayats will end in March 2022. The election for those Panchayats will be held in March, Singh said.
While the counting of votes for the Sarpanch and Panch elections will be done on the day of polling, the counting of Janpad panchayat and district panchayat will be done on different dates in different phases.
"Ballots for Sarpanch and panch elections will be used, while EVM will be used for the elections of members of district Panchayats and Janpad Panchayats," the SEC added.