The poll panel in Arunachal Pradesh has scheduled the much-deferred panchayat and municipal elections simultaneously on December 22, after a delay of almost two years.
This will be the second election in the Northeast during the COVID-19 pandemic after the rural and civic polls in Mizoram in October. The elections to the Bodoland Territorial Council in Assam have been cleared but a date has not been announced.
The elections got delayed due to the amendment to the existing acts and rules for conversion of the panchayat system from three-tier to two-tier and municipal councils to municipal, State Election Commissioner Hage Kojeen said on November 12.
“We had done the groundwork for holding the polls in April-May. The COVID-19 outbreak caused further delay,” he said.
Public notice for the elections would be issued by returning officers on November 24 and the last date for filing nomination papers would be December 2. “The scrutiny of the documents will take place on December 4 and the last date for withdrawal of the nominations is December 7. The votes will be counted on December 26 and the entire process will be completed by December 31”, he said.
COVID-19 guidelines issued
Separate COVID-19 guidelines have been issued for election officials, candidates and political parties, he noted.
Arunachal Pradesh has 25 zilla parishads with 241 constituencies and 2,215 gram panchayats with 8,436 seats.
The two civic bodies in the State – the Itanagar Municipal Corporation and the Pasighat Municipal Corporation – have 20 and eight wards respectively.
A total of 7,39,284 voters will be eligible to exercise their franchise in 2,175 polling booths for both the elections.
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