Hyderabad: Polling for the first phase of gram panchayat elections has begun across Telangana. Elections are being held for 3,834 sarpanch positions and 27,628 ward member seats. Voting, which commenced at 7 a.m., will continue until 1 p.m. A total of 56,19,430 voters are eligible to cast their ballots at 37,562 polling stations.
Counting of votes will start at 2 p.m., immediately after the conclusion of polling, followed by the announcement of results. Subsequently, meetings with ward members will be held to conduct the election of deputy sarpanch positions.
In the initial notification, elections were announced for 4,236 sarpanch posts and 37,440 ward member seats. Of these, nominations were not filed for five sarpanch posts and 169 ward member positions. A total of 396 sarpanch posts and 9,633 ward member seats were declared unanimous. Additionally, one gram panchayat sarpanch election and ten ward member elections were stayed by the courts.
Excluding these, 12,960 candidates are contesting for 3,834 sarpanch posts, while 65,455 candidates are in the fray for 27,628 ward member seats. On average, there are 3.38 candidates per sarpanch post and 2.36 candidates per ward member seat.