Ahmedabad, 29 December 2011

Over 8,000 villages voted today to elect their Sarpanch and panchayat body. Gujarat has total 18,000 villages. Of them over 10,500 were to elect their new Sarpanch today. However over 2,000 Panchayts elected their Sarpanch and local body unopposed. Rest of the villages witnessed election today.

Today’s election was the biggest polling exercise prior to Gujarat assembly general election scheduled in December 2012. Today’s poll involved over 1.00 crore voters.

BJP takes this election as nano technology of politics. Gram Panchayts build micro bodies, and micro moods are reflected in the result.

Congress hopes for better results. In fact, you can expect that irrespective of any result, the Congress will claim victory over most of the panchayats. This is because in the case of wide-spread Panchayat polls, involving thousands of panchayts, it is hard to get actual picture of which party actually won how many panchayts.

Updates

According to Shri PS Shah, Chief of Gujarat Election Commission, the gram panchayat poll today witnessed 65-75% voting.

Re-election has been order on 18 seats.

One person was killed in Dahod in election violence.