Elections for Punjab’s 22 Zila Parishad and 150 Panchayat samitis will be held on 19 September. The state election commissioner, Jagpal Singh Sandhu on Wednesday announced the schedule for these elections.
With the announcement of the schedule, the ‘Model Code of Conduct’ has come into force immediately in the state. The Code of Conduct would be in force till the completion of the electoral process.
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Addressing a Press conference, Sandhu said that the process for filing the nominations would commence on 4 September and 7 September would be the last date for filing the nominations.
The nominations would be scrutinised on 10 September while the date for withdrawal of the nominations would be 11 September 2018 which would also be the date for allotting the election symbols to the candidates.
The voting would be held on 19 September from 8 a.m. till 4 p.m. Counting of votes would be held on 22 September 2018. A total of 35 observers are being appointed to ensure peaceful conduct of the polls.
He said that 354 members would be elected for 22 Zila Parishads and 2900 Members would be elected for 150 Panchayat samitis in the state. Punjab government has given 50 per cent reservation for women in Zila Parishads and Panchayat samitis.
Sandhu also said that the voter lists of the Zila Parishad and block Samitis had been updated with qualifing date of 01.01.2018. He appealed to all the voters to participate in the voting process with full zeal.
There are 6688245 male, 6099053 female and 97 third gender voters totalling 12787395 registered voters in state for these elections. Commission has established 17268 polling booth and 86340 personnel will be put on election duty.
The state election commissioner further said that the expenditure limit for a candidate contesting for Zila Parishad has been fixed at Rs 1.90 lakhs where as the limit for those contesting Block Samitis coming has been fixed at Rs 80,000.