34 constituencies go to poll in 4th phase of DDC election in Jammu and Kashmir today

Thirty-four district development councils (DDCs) of the electoral districts, including 17 from the J&K divisions, will vote in the 4th step of the current electoral process. In addition to this, 50 vacant Sarpanch seats and 216 vacant Panch seats in these DDC electoral districts will also be filled at this stage.

A total of 138 candidates are running for the 17 DDCs of the Kashmir Division, while 111 candidates are competing for the 17 DDCs.

In the fourth process, 123 Sarpanch vacancies were notified, of which 45 were filled without opposition. There will be a race in 50 electoral districts in which 137 candidates, including 47 women, will take part.

Similarly, out of a total of 1,207 Panch vacancies notified at this point, 416 were filled without opposition and there is no contest in those electoral districts. The voting will take place in 216 Panch electoral districts in which 478 candidates, including 129 women, will take part.

In the fourth phase, over 7 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise. These include, 3,76,797 men and 3,40,525 women. Among these, 3,50,149 are from Jammu division and 3,67,173 are from Kashmir division.

A total of 1,910 poll booths have been set up in Jammu and Kashmir for this process. Of these, 781 are in Jammu and 1,129 are in the division of Kashmir. Elections for Sarpanch vacancies would take place at 212 of the 1,910 polling stations and for Panch vacancies, 219 polling stations will be included. In the meanwhile, 1,152 of the overall polling booths are hypersensitive, 349 are moderate and 409 are categorised as usual.

Voting will take place from 7 am till 2 pm on Monday and all arrangements for this phase are in place, including manpower, election material and security arrangements.

In view of the Covid-19 pandemic, adequate arrangements have been put in place to ensure the safety of all stakeholders including the voters coming to vote at the polling stations. Sanitisers, thermal scanners and face masks have been arranged at the polling stations to ensure that SOPs issued by the concerned authorities, including wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing, are strictly followed at the polling stations.

Special polling stations have been arranged at Women College Gandhinagar, Jammu and Girls Higher Secondary School Udhampur to facilitate physical voting by Kashmiri migrants.