The much-awaited Panchayat polls in Uttar Pradesh will begin on Thursday with the first phase of polling in 18 districts with ballot papers. Polling will take place from 7 am to 6 pm.
More than 3.33 lakh candidates are in the fray in over 2.21 lakh seats in the first phase for the posts of Zila Panchayat (district council) members, kshetra (block) Panchayat members, village Panchayat heads and wards.
The districts that will go to polls on Thursday are Ayodhya, Agra, Kanpur, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Jaunpur, Jhansi, Prayagraj, Bareilly, Bhadohi, Mahoba, Rampur, Rae Bareli, Shravasti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Saharanpur, Hardoi and Hathras.
For the post of Zila Panchayat members, 11,442 candidates are in the fray from 779 wards, while as many as 81,747 candidates are contesting in 19,313 wards of kshetra Panchayats.
For the Gram Panchayat, there are 1,14,142 candidates for 14,789 posts. And, for the Gram Panchayat wards, there are 1,26,613 candidates for 1,86,583 seats.
Apart…