Panchayat elections linked to Covid situation: Administration

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 7

The UT administration has contemplated to conduct elections to over 12,500 vacant seats of sarpanches and panches in Jammu and Kashmir but is awaiting improvement in the situation arising out of the Covid pandemic.

Over 60 per cent of the panchayat member seats, including those of sarpanches and panches, are vacant in Kashmir. Over 12,052 posts of panchayat members out of the total 19578 remained vacant in Kashmir alone, which is nearly 61.55 per cent of all seats in the Valley, after the panchayat elections held in 2018.

Sources said Chief Secretary BVR Subhramanyam recently held discussions over the issue and expressed his intention for the early conduct of these polls which were scheduled to be held in February-March this year.

“Following the outbreak of Covid in the first week of March, the government deferred these polls. The Chief Secretary has reportedly said that the byelections to all 12,500 vacant posts of panch and sarpanch in J&K will be conducted as soon as the coronavirus situation improves in the UT,” sources said.

Chief Electoral Officer, J&K, Hirdesh Kumar, said they were fully prepared to hold these elections, but the UT government would have to take a call on it.

“Elections were deferred following the outbreak of coronavirus. We would have conducted these elections if this emergent situation had not arisen. Let the situation improve. We are fully prepared, but the UT government will have to take a call on it,” he said.

In January this year, the government had constituted an apex panel, headed by Principal Secretary of the Home Department “to draw a roadmap and detailed schedule for the conduct of the elections to the vacant panchayats across the Union Territory on the basis of inputs from the divisional-level committees and upon assessment of the ground level situation”.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.