The state will go for local polls on 15 December.
A total of 440 candidates are in the fray for 186 zilla parishad (ZP) constituencies, while 39 candidates are contesting 16 Itanagar Municipal Corporation wards, and 21 candidates are contesting eight Pasighat Municipal Council wards.
The election has thrown up some interesting figures.
Fifty-eight BJP candidates and one NPP candidate have been elected uncontested in 59 ZP constituencies.
In four IMC wards, all BJP candidates have been elected uncontested.
There are 13 gram panchayat constituencies where no nominations were filed, and 14 GP constituencies where the nominations of all candidates were rejected during the scrutiny process.
The Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar) has secured 109 out of 594 gram panchayat seats unopposed. It has also fielded eight candidates for the Itanagar Municipal Corporation elections. The party currently has three MLAs in the legislative assembly.
The trend of unopposed elections is not a healthy sign in a democracy. No matter how popular a politician is, not giving people the chance to vote is a deprivation of their rights and an imposition. At some point, this practice of unopposed or ‘selected’ elections has to be stopped because it is akin to fixing an outcome.