The polling for elections to the 12 Zilla Parishads and 125 Panchayat Samitis will now be held on February 7, and the counting of votes will now take place on February 9, announced the State Election Commission (SEC) on Thursday. This comes in view of the three-day mourning that has been declared in Maharashtra following the death of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in an unfortunate plane crash in Baramati on Thursday.
The Maharashtra SEC had announced dates for the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections in the state on January 13. As per the schedule released earlier, the polling was scheduled to be held on February 5 and the counting of votes was supposed to be held on February 7. This was done following directions from the Supreme Court that had granted a two-week extension beyond January 31 to conduct the elections.
Maharashtra Zilla Parishad, Panchayat Samiti elections
According to the SEC, the Zilla Parishad and the Panchayat Samiti elections will be held across 12 districts -- Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Solapur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Dharashiv, Latur, and Parbhani. For these elections, 25,482 polling stations will be set up and around 2.09 crore voters, including 1.02 crore women, will be eligible to exercise their franchise in these elections.
Each voter would need to cast two votes: one for Zilla Parishad and one for Panchayat Samiti. In the 12 Zilla Parishad, 431 members will be elected. Similarly, 1,462 members will be elected in the 125 panchayat samitis. Of these panchayat samiti seats, 431 will be reserved for women, 166 for Scheduled Castes (SCs), 38 for Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 342 for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
Ajit Pawar's death
Coming to Ajit Pawar, the deputy chief minister died in a plane crash on Wednesday (January 28). Apart from him, four other members were also killed after the ill-fated aircraft in which they were travelling crashed in Baramati in the Pune district. His last rites took place on Thursday, in presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Deputy CM Eknath Shinde, veteran politicians Sharad Pawar and Supriya Sule, and other leaders.
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