PANAJI
The State Election Commission (SEC) on Saturday announced the detailed schedule for the August 10 panchayat election process to the 186 village panchayats in the State.
With the announcement, the Code of Conduct has come into force in the jurisdiction of all the 186 Panchayats, SEC W V Ramanamurthy said.
The process for filing of nominations will begin on Monday, July 18 from 10 am to 1 pm and will be on until July 25 but no papers will be accepted on Sunday, July 24.
Scrutiny of the nominations will take place on July 26 and candidates will be permitted to withdraw their nominations on July 27.
As notified earlier, the voting process will be held on August 10 from 8 am to 5 pm and ballot papers will be used. Counting of votes will be taken up on August 12.
Ramanamurthy, who briefed journalists in the capital on Saturday said, the model code of conduct will not be applicable to the jurisdiction of municipal councils and the Corporation of the City of Panaji.
The SEC has meanwhile set the maximum expenditure limit for candidates to campaign at Rs 40,000.
A total of 1,528 seats in 186 panchayats are up for grabs in the elections which are not being held on party lines and in which 8.27 lakh voters are eligible to cast their ballot.
The SEC has reserved 21 wards (1.37%) for Scheduled Castes, 187 (12.32%) for Scheduled Tribes and 307 (20.10%).
There are in all 1,566 polling booths set up at 1,049 polling locations with 30 of these booths identified as sensitive and 10,700 polling staff deployed to conduct the elections.
