Puducherry: The civic body polls will be held in the union territory of Puducherry in three phases between October 21 and 28 as said by the State Election Commission on Wednesday.
State Election Commissioner Roy P Thomas announced the three-phased local body elections in the Union Territory. He said that the first phase of the poll will be conducted on October 21 for Karaikal, Mahe, and Yanam municipalities. The notification will be issued on September 30.
The second phase of the poll will be conducted on October 25 for the Municipalities in Puducherry and Oulgaret while the notification will be issued on October 4.
He said the third phase of the poll has been scheduled to be held on October 28 to the Ariyankuppam, Bahoor, Mannadipet, Nettapakkam, and Villianur commune panchayats and the statutory notification for the third phase of the election would be issued on October 7.
The SEC said the elections to the local bodies are being held in Union Territory after a gap of 15 years.
In the first phase, 2.30 lakh voters would go to the polls while 4.44 lakh voters would exercise their franchise in the second phase, and in the third phase 3.28 lakh voters would go to the poll.
The election would be held between 7 am and 6 pm. The SEC added that the last one hour (between 5 pm and 6 pm) would be earmarked for Covid patients and patients with symptoms of the pandemic to exercise their franchise.
Thomas also said for the first time multi-post electronic voting machines would be used in the polls. As many as 1629 polling stations have been identified wherein about 8500 officers would be deployed to conduct the polls in a free, fair, and transparent manner. Counting of votes would take place on October 31 after the poll in three phases is completed. The last civic poll was held in 2006 and no election could be held at the end of the five-year tenure of the civic bodies that came into existence in the wake of the 2006 polls for various reasons.
(With Inputs From PTI)
