Lucknow, Apr 18 (UNI) Voting for the second phase of the three-tier panchayat polls will be held on Monday in the wake of exponential rise in COVID cases.
The first phase of polling in 18 districts were held on April 15, when around 71 per cent of the over 3 crore voters used their franchise. However, due to violence in some places in the first phase, repolling have been ordered in 20 booths of 9 districts on April 21.
Covid-19 has started creating havoc in the state and till Saturday, over 27,000 fresh cases were reported and death toll on the day was 102.
The campaigning for the second phase had ended on Saturday evening in 20 districts where polling will be held between 0700 hours to 1800 hours on Monday.
In this second phase polling important districts like Lucknow and Varanasi will go for polls.
State Election Commission (SEC) sources here on Sunday said around 3.2 crore voters will exercise their franchise for 737 posts of Zilla Panchayat member, 19653 of Kshetra Panchayat member, 14897 posts of Gram Pradhan and 187781 posts of Gram Panchayat ward member.
The polling parties have started leaving for their respective booths from this morning. The SEC has appointed 23 observers to maintain the transparency and fairness of the polling.
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Polling will be held in the districts are: Baghpat, Muzaffarnagar, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Bijnor, Amroha, Badaun, Etah, Mainpuri, Kannauj, Etawah, Lalitpur, Chitrakoot, Pratapgarh, Lucknow, Lakhimpur Kheri, Gonda, Sultanpur, Maharajganj, Varanasi and Azamgarh.
Meanwhile, State Election Commissioner Manoj Kumar has said that all observers have been instructed to follow the model code of conduct in panchayat elections.
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