With completion of reservation process for the post of Panch, Sarpanch, Janpad and District Panchayat member elections, the State Election Commission has announced schedule for election of three-tier (Gram, Janpad and Zila) Panchayat in Madhya Pradesh. It will be held in three phases. The first phase of polling will be held on June 25, second and third phases will be held on July 1 and 8 respectively, the Commission said. State Election Commissioner Basant Pratap Singh announced the dates in a press conference at the State Election Commission office on Friday. With this the model code of conduct is in effect in rural areas.

Notification will be issued in all the districts on May 30. With this, process of filing nomination papers will start, which will continue till June 6. Results will be announced on July 14 and 15. Elections will be held to choose 875 members from 52 district panchayat, 6,771 Janpad members from 313 Janpad, 3,63,726 Panchs and 22,921 Sarpanchs.

In the first phase, elections will be held for 115 Janpad Panchayats, 8,702 Gram Panchayats. In the second phase, elections will be held for 106 Janpad Panchayats and 7,661 Gram Panchayats and in the third phase, it will be held for only 92 Janpad Panchayats and 6,649 Gram Panchayats.

Election will be held district-wise in which first phase five districts, second phase eight districts and on third phase 39 districts. He said that normally elections are not conducted in monsoon season but now numbers of

unreached villages are negligible. The SEC has reduced the polling time by one hour. Now voting will be held in all the three phases from 7 am to 3 pm. Earlier the timings were from 7 am to 4 pm. The State Election Commissioner mentioned that due to COVID, the time was extended by one hour but now conditions are normal, so previous system has been implemented. There will be no election in 91 gram panchayats as the tenure for those will be completed in November 2022.