The Hindu : Karnataka News : Gram panchayat election to be held in February

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Gram panchayat election to be held in February

By Our Special Correspondent

GULBARGA, DEC. 27. The election to gram panchayats will be held in February in two phases, and the State Election Commission is likely to issue the notification in the third week of January.

Making this announcement at a press conference here today, the State Election Commissioner, M.R. Hegde, said the commission has started the election process. It is consulting deputy commissioners and superintendents of police to prepare them for holding the election in a free and fair manner, he added.

He said one meeting was held in Mysore, and the second meeting for the officials of Gulbarga, Bijapur, Raichur and Bidar districts was held today. On Tuesday, a meeting will be held in Dharwad for officials from Bombay Karnataka. Mr. Hegde said there will be a sharp increase in the number of members of gram panchayats owing to the increase in population. The increase in the number of voters in rural areas is 15 per cent as per the 2001 Census, and the number of gram panchayat members will go up from 80,000 to 91,000.

No EVMs

To a question, Mr. Hegde said electronic voting machines (EVM) will not be used in the gram panchayat election since the EVMs were designed for use in single-member constituencies and not in the multi-member gram panchayat constituencies.

Moreover, for the use of EVMs, the Panchayat Raj Act should be amended, he pointed out. He said the term of the gram panchayats will end on March 1 and the Election Commission proposes to complete the election process by February-end.

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