The crucial elections to 12 Zilla Parishads and 125 Panchayat Samitis in Maharashtra is being held on Saturday amid tightened security across the state. According to the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC), the polling began at 7.30 am and will continue till 5.30 pm, and the counting of votes will be held from 10 am on February 9 (Monday). These elections, which have been pending since 2022, will decide the fate of 7,438 candidates across 731 Zilla Parishad and 1,462 Panchayat Samiti seats. Approximately 2.09 crore voters - 1,06,33,269 male voters, 1,01,86,965 female voters and 468 voters from other categories - are eligible to cast their votes in the Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis polls in the state. Each of the voters will cast two votes: one for Zilla Parishads and one Panchayat Samitis, as per the Maharashtra SEC.
The Maharashtra SEC has said that the voters can also use the 'Matadhikar' mobile application to find their names and polling stations. For these elections, which are being held across 12 districts across three divisions (Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Parbhani, Dharashiv and Latur), the poll body has set up 25,471 polling stations. More than 1.28 lakh security personnel, including 125 returning officers and 125 assistant returning officers, have also been deployed. The poll body has appealed to people to come in large numbers and cast their votes in the Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis elections across 12 districts of the state.
