BHUBANESWAR: With no nominations filed for over 4,000 posts for panchayat elections, State Election Commissioner (SEC) Aditya Prasad Padhi on Tuesday stated a notification will be issued on January 27 to give a second chance to the aspirants to file papers. As per the SEC, while no nominations have been filed for over 4,000 seats of ward members, no response has been received for six seats of sarpanch and seven panchayat samiti members.
The SEC said the official notification for filing of the fresh nomination papers will be announced on January 27. Aspiring candidates can file their nomination papers between January 29 and 31 and scrutiny will be held on February 1. Candidates can withdraw their papers from February 2 to 4 and subsequently, the final list of the candidates will be announced.
Stating that this will be the final chance for the candidates to file their nominations for the forthcoming panchayat polls, the SEC said that if nominations are not filed from some specific places, the sub-collectors will select the sarpanch and ward members for those seats.The Panchayati Raj department will select candidates for the vacant seats of panchayat samiti members. He said this is the final chance and elections to these constituencies will be scrapped if nominations are not filed.
The SEC said a close watch is being kept on guidelines for the panchayat elections and a decision will be taken regarding the guidelines for campaigning. “We are keeping a strong vigil on the Covid-19 situation in the State and accordingly a decision about the guidelines for panchayat election campaigning will be taken soon,” he added.
The last date for withdrawal of nomination papers was January 25 for the panchayat polls which will be held in five phases between February 16 and 24. As many as 8,648 nomination papers submitted by candidates for election to various positions were rejected during scrutiny on Sunday. These included nomination papers for 5,544 ward members, 1,753 sarpanchs, 1,119 panchayat samiti members and 232 zilla parishad zones.