Lucknow: Elections for zila panchayat chairman posts in 53 districts of Uttar Pradesh will be held on Saturday after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 22 of them unopposed and the Samajwadi Party’s candidates in one in Etawah.
The State Election Commission said that the polling will take place from 11 am to 3 pm. Counting of votes will be held after 3 pm.
UP State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar said, in a statement on Tuesday, that chairpersons of zila panchayats of 22 districts have been elected unopposed. The poll panel did not announce the party affiliation of winning candidates but the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) later claimed it had won 21 seats and the Samajwadi Party (SP) said the seat in the Etawah district was bagged by its candidate.
The State Election Commission said that zila panchayat chiefs have been elected unopposed from Saharanpur, Bahraich, Itawa, Chitrakoot, Agra, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahar, Amroha, Moradabad, Lalitpur, Jhansi, Banda, Shravasti, Balrampur, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Mau, Varanasi, Pilibhit and Shahjahanpur. UP State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar said that chairpersons of these zila panchayats have been elected unopposed.
Zila panchayat chairpersons are elected from among the elected members of Zila panchayats of various districts.
The four-phase panchayat polls concluded in the state in May.
The zila panchayat election comes before the assembly election and might prove to be a test for BJP and SP.
Earlier in Panchayat Polls, BJP had suffered a major setback as party’s several candidates lost and results were seen as a referendum on the Yogi govt.