Rajasthan panchayat polls: Voting begins for last phase

Jaipur: Polling for the fourth and last phase of panchayat elections in Rajasthan, covering 897-gram panchayats, began on Saturday morning amid tight security.

State Election Commission secretary Shyam Rajpurohit said the polling to elect sarpanch and panch began at 7.30 am and is going on peacefully. There are 30.56 lakh voters including 15.97 lakh male and 14.59 lakh female voters in the gram panchayats where voting is taking place.

He said the elections are being held according to the guidelines related to COVID-19. As many as 4,629 candidates are in the fray for the post of sarpanch and 11,373 for the post of panch, he said, adding that 26 sarpanches and 3,714 panch have already been elected unopposed.

EVMs are being used for the polling to elect sarpanch while ballot papers are being used to elect panch. The first phase voting took place on September 28, while the second phase was held on October 3. The third phase polling took place on October 6.