Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat polls News

Polls to fill over 13000 vacant panchayat seats in J&K will be held soon This would be the first major polling exercise in J&K since the creation of UT Notification and schedule for the by-election on 12,168 vacancies of Panches and 1,089 vacancies of Sarpanches across all 20 districts of the UT will be announced soon

A massive 85.1 per cent polling was witnessed in five districts of Jammu division, while encouraging 49.6 per cent was witnessed in five districts of Kashmir division, he said.

Voting for the penultimate phase of the nine-phased Panchayat polls is underway Saturday at over 2,600 polling stations in Jammu and Kashmir.

A massive 84.6 per cent polling was witnessed in Jammu division, while only 17.3 per cent polling-- which incidentally was the lowest compared to the previous five phases-- was recorded in Kashmir division, Kabra said.

The trend of high voter turnout in the panchayat polls continued despite militant threats and boycott by main regional parties - the National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party.

The polling began at 8 am and ended at 2 pm in 2,773 polling stations, including 918 in Kashmir division and 1,855 in Jammu division, officials said.

The National Conference (NC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the CPI(M) have announced that they will stay away from the elections. 

According to officials, 427 candidates are in the fray for 536 Sarpanch Halqas and 5,951 candidates for 4,048 Panch wards for the first phase of the Panchayat polls, as reported by news agency PTI.

Jammu and Kashmir will this year witness the urban local body elections after 2005 and Panchayat elections after 2011. The provision of direct elections for Sarpanches of the Panchayats has also been restored this year.