Stage set for GTA & Panchayat polls to Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad

Darjeeling: The stage is all set for the Panchayat general election to Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad and Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) polls on Sunday.

The time for GTA polling is from 8 am to 4 pm and for theMahakuma Parishad polling will be held from 7 am to 5 pm. "All necessary arrangements have been made. We are ready to conduct the polls," stated S Ponnambalam, District Magistrate, Darjeeling.

22 Gram Panchayats, 4 Panchayat Samities and the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad will be going to polls on Sunday. There are 9 seats in the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad. There are 66 seats in total in the 4 Panchayat Samities under the Mahakuma (Sub Division.) Under the 4 Panchayat Samities there are 22 Gram Panchayats with a total number of 462 seats.

While 1442 candidates are in the fray in the 22 Gram Panchayats there are 232 candidates contesting in the 4 Panchayat Samities and 41 candidates in the 9 seats of the Mahakuma Parishad. As many as 5,27,938 voters will be casting their votes in the 657 booths for the Panchayat General elections. 5100 polling personnel have been deployed. 89 polling stations have been earmarked as critical and 79 as vulnerable.

The GTA comprises 45 constituencies spread across the Darjeeling, Kurseong and Mirik sub divisions of the Darjeeling district along with the entire Kalimpong district in the northern part of the state of West Bengal. There are 700326 voters including 344356 males, 355966 females and 4 others.

There are 922 polling stations. 5 polling stations have been earmarked as critical along with 101 vulnerable polling stations.

A total of 4700 polling personnel have been deployed to conduct the GTA elections. Srikhola Primary School is the highest polling booth located at an altitude 2800 m. The Tangta Primary School is the farthest booth located 137 km from the Kalimpong distribution center. These booths are known as P-2 booths, where polling personnel have to leave two days ahead of the polls from distribution centers.

There are 3 Distribution/Receiving centres namely at Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong. The Indo-Nepal international border in West Bengal has been closed down from today till 26th June midnight owing to the polls.

The weather office has issued a yellow rainfall warning for the region. Disaster Management, Quick Response, WBSEDCL teams have been kept on standby to tackle an eventuality.