Bengal panchayat polls likely in April, notification in March

Kolkata, Feb 24 The polls for the three-tier panchayat system in West Bengal is likely to happen by the end of April this year when all the major board examinations in the state will be over, the officials of West Bengal State Election Commission (WBSEC) said.

A notification announcing the date of poll and counting is likely to be issued by the commission by the third week of March.

Meanwhile, the WBSEC on Thursday released the draft voters' list for the panchayat polls this year. As per the draft list, a total of 5,66,86,119 voters will be casting their votes in the forthcoming rural civic body polls in the state. The figure is higher by over 11 per cent or 58,51,117 voters from the figure of 5,08,35,002 in 2019 when the last panchayat elections in the state was organised.

This year, there will be elections for a total of 63,229 seats scattered over the three years of the panchayat system in the state namely zilla parishad, panchayat samiti and gram panchayat.

"The final voters' list will be released on March 10 and soon after that the notification announcing the dates for polls and counting will be announced," a WBSEC official said.

It is learnt that this time the commission for the first time will be using ballot boxes with special QR codes in the rural civic body polls. Each polling booth will have four ballot boxes, one big-size box for panchayat samiti tier, one medium-size box for village panchayat tier and two small-size boxes for zilla parishad tier and each ballot box will have an unique QR code having the tier-wise, booth-wise and district-wise details, which will also be available at the election commission's portal.

To recall, the last rural civic body polls in West Bengal were marred by massive violence with the total number of poll-related deaths recorded at 13.

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