OUR CORRESPONDENT
ITANAGAR: As many as 63 candidates have already been elected uncontested in the December 15 municipal and local bodies elections in Arunachal Pradesh, the State Election Commission informed here on Sunday.
The ruling BJP won unopposed in 58 zila parishad constituencies, along with one candidate from the National Peoples’ Party (NPP), the poll body stated in a release.
Four BJP candidates were also elected unopposed to the Itanagar Municipal Corporation (IMC), the SEC informed.
These early results came after the last date for withdrawing nominations on Saturday, underscoring significant pre-poll consolidation in several constituencies. The SEC informed that altogether 440 candidates will contest 186 zilla parishad seats, along with 39 candidates for 16 IMC wards and 21 candidates for eight Pasighat Municipal Council (PMC) wards.
The nomination process saw 600 nominations filed for 245 zilla parishad constituencies, 10,550 for 8,182 gram panchayat constituencies, 101 for 20 IMC wards and 28 for eight PMC wards by the November 24 deadline. Scrutiny of papers was completed on November 26, the SEC said.
It added that a total of 13 gram panchayat constituencies received no nominations, while all nominations in 14 GP constituencies were rejected during scrutiny.
Polling in the Dumba Singpho gram panchayat constituency has been countermanded due to the death of a validly nominated candidate.
These are provisional figures, and the vacant seats will be filled later through bye-elections.
Arunachal Pradesh will conduct the 12th general elections to panchayati raj institutions and the 3rd municipal elections for Itanagar and Pasighat simultaneously on December 15.
A total of 8,31,648 voters, including 7,59,210 for panchayat bodies and 72,438 for municipal bodies, are eligible to cast their ballots across 2,171 polling stations for panchayat elections, 67 for IMC and 12 for PMC.
Also Read: Arunachal: SEC reviews preparedness for panchayat, municipal polls