Arunachal’s Itanagar, Pasighat gear up for panchayat & municipal polls on Dec 15
Guwahati: Itanagar and Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh are set to go to the polls on Monday, December 15, for panchayat and municipal elections, with the State Election Commission (SEC) deploying more than 40,000 personnel to ensure orderly voting.
Polling will begin at 7 am and conclude at 4 pm, SEC Rinchin Tashi confirmed on Sunday.
A total of 8,31,648 voters are eligible to cast their ballots, including 7,59,210 for panchayat elections and 72,438 for municipal elections.
Voting will take place across 2,171 panchayat polling stations, 67 for the Itanagar Municipal Corporation (IMC), and 12 for the Pasighat Municipal Council (PMC).
“In panchayat elections, female voters outnumber male voters,” Tashi noted. Upper Subansiri district has the largest panchayat electorate with 58,764 voters, while Dibang Valley has the smallest with 3,854 electors.
In the municipal polls, Itanagar’s Ward 19 has the highest voter count at 5,106, and Pasighat’s Ward 6 has the lowest at 812.
To facilitate smooth polling, the SEC has appointed 29 general observers—one for each district and municipal body—and implemented heightened security measures in sensitive districts, including Tirap, Changlang, and Longding.
The commission has assigned 15,000 polling staffers among the 40,000 deployed personnel.
Authorities will use Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) for municipal elections, while voters will cast panchayat ballots using ballot boxes.
Prior to Monday’s polls, the ruling BJP secured 58 Zilla Parishad constituencies unopposed, while the National People’s Party (NPP) claimed one seat.
The BJP secured four seats in the Itanagar Municipal Corporation without a contest, while 5,037 BJP candidates won gram panchayat seats unopposed.
Currently, 440 candidates are contesting 186 Zilla Parishad seats, 39 candidates are vying for 16 IMC wards, and 21 are contesting eight wards in the Pasighat Municipal Council.
The SEC reported that 13 gram panchayat constituencies received no nominations, and 14 constituencies had all nominations rejected during scrutiny.
The State Election Commission countermanded polling for the Dumba Singpho gram panchayat seat after a candidate’s death and scheduled vote counting for December 20, bringing the electoral process to its conclusion.