Uttar Pradesh Gram Panchayat Election 2021 Full Schedule, Polling Date, Result Date: Uttar Pradesh Panchayat, Block and Zila Panchayat elections will take place in four phases from April 15. The State Election Commission last month announced a detailed schedule, saying the first phase of polling will take place on April 15, second phase on April 19, third phase on April 26 and fourth on April 29. Results will be declared on May 2. Seen as a semi-final to the next year’s assembly election, this election will be held with ballot papers.
Poll Date and Timing
Phase-I: April 15
Phase-II: April 19
Phase-III: April 26
Phase-IV: April 29
Voting will begin at 7 am and continue till 6 pm.
Districts going to polls in Phase-I
Saharanpur
Ghaziabad
Rampur
Bareli
Hathras
Agra
Kanpur Nagar
Jhansi
Mahoba
Prayagraj
Hardoi
Ayodhya
Sharavasti
Sant Kabir Nagar
Gorakhpur
Jaunpur
Bhadohi
In the first phase, more than 3.33 lakh candidates are in the fray for over 2.21 lakh seats for zila panchayat (district council) members, kshetra (block) panchayat members, village panchayat heads. For the post of zila panchayat members, 11,442 candidates are in the fray from 779 wards. As many as 81,747 candidates are contesting in 19,313 wards of kshetra panchayats. For the gram panchayat, 1,14,142 candidates are trying their luck for 14,789 posts. For gram panchayat wards, there are 1,26,613 candidates for 1,86,583 seats.
Districts Going to Polls in Phase-II
Muzaffarnagar
Baghpat
Gautambuddh Nagar
Bijnor
Amroha
Badayun
Eta
Mainpuri
Kannauj
Etawah
Lalitpur
Chitarkoot
Pratapgarh
Lucknow
Lakhimpur Khiri
Sultanpur
Gonda
Mahrajganj
Varanasi
Azamgarh
Districts Going to Polls in Phase-III
Shamli
Meerut
Moradabad
Pilibhit
Kasganj
Firozabad
Auraiya
Kanpur Dehat
Jalaun
Hamirpur
Fatehpur
Unnao
Amethi
Barabanki
Balrampur
Siddharth Nagar
Deoria
Chandauli
Mirzapur
Balia
Districts Going to Polls in Phase-IV
Bulandshahar
Hapur
Sambhal
Shahjahanpur
Aligarh
Mathura
Farukhabad
Banda
Kaushambi
Sitapur
Ambedkar Nagar
Bahraich
Basti
Kushinagar
Ghazipur
Sonbhadra
Mau
The BJP, BSP, Samajwadi Party and the Congress are among the dominating parties in the fray. Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party and Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar Aazad’s Azad Samaj Party are making their debut in UP. The AIMIM is contesting this election with the Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, which was earlier part of NDA.
UP Municipal Election 2017
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had swept the election by winning 14 of 16 mayor posts. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) came at distant second position with win on just two seats. At least 11 other parties had contested the polls but drew blank. For Municipal councillor, 1300 seats were up for grab. Of these, the saffron party again cornered the lion’s share with win 597 seats. Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party won 202 while BSP bagged 147 and the Congress secured 110 seats.
Reservation of seats in villages
The local body election was due in April-May but faced some hurdles due to disagreement over reservation of panchayat seats in villages. In February, the state government issued an order fixing 1995 as the base year for rotating the reserved seats in village, blocks and district local bodies. However, a petitioner, Ajay Kumar, challenged the order saying it was in violation of an earlier notification that had fixed 2015 as the base year. Upon these submissions, the court asked the government to follow the 2015 rules for seat reservation in the panchayat elections.
In February, the High Court had asked the state election Commission to hold panchayat elections by April 30. The court had rejected the EC’s undertaking to hold the elections by May 2021. The court had also noted that the panchayat election should have been held on or before January 13, 2021.
