Bhubaneswar: The nomination of as many as 8648 candidates for the upcoming panchayat polls in Odisha has been rejected, informed the State Election Commission (SEC) today.
According to the SEC, nominations of as many as 5544 Ward Member candidates, 1753 Sarpanch candidates, 1119 P.S Member candidates and 232 Z.P Member candidates have been rejected after scrutiny.
The State Election Commission said that the nominations of 156753 Ward Member candidates, 32860 Sarpanch candidates, 27034 P.S Member candidates and 3767 Z.P Member candidates remain valid after the scrutiny which was done yesterday.
It is to be noted here that a total of 65828 persons filed their nomination papers for Ward Member, 14074 for Sarpanch, 12512 for P.S Member and 2191 for the Z.P Member posts.
As per the schedule, candidates who want can now withdraw their nomination by 3 PM of January 25 after which the SEC will publish the final list of candidates at 5 PM of the same day.
The Panchayat polls in Odisha will be held in five phases on February 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24 with strict adherence to Covid-19 protocols. Counting of votes and declaration of results will be done at the Block level on February 26, 27, and 28.
Over 2.79 crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to elect 91,913 ward members, 6,794 Sarpanches, 6,793 Panchayat Samiti members, and 853 Zilla Parishad members.
Ms Kalinga