Panchayat elections: EC likely to meet DMs next week

Kolkata: The State Election Commission is expected to hold a meeting with all the District Magistrates (DMs) next week to check the preparedness by the district administrations to conduct the Panchayat elections which might take place in June. The Commission is yet to issue election notification.

The Commission will announce the final list of voting centres by April 28. It is assumed that it would take around 21-35 days to hold the election after the publication of notification. The State Election Commission has already directed the DMs to ensure that there should be at least one state or Central government employee in a team of voting personnel. There will be around 63,339 voting centres across the state.

According to sources, the State election commission will require more than 3.5 lakh election personnel to conduct panchayat elections this year. All the district magistrates (DMs) have already prepared a preliminary list of vote personnel. The state election commission has already issued guidelines to the Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad constituencies in 22 (twenty-two) districts of the State for conducting elections smoothly.