Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, 2 Jan: Invoking Rule 67 of the Arunachal Pradesh Panchayati Raj (Conduct of Election) Rules, 2001, the state government on Saturday directed the deputy commissioners to convene the first meeting of the gram panchayat members (GPM) and the zilla parishad members (ZPM) on 15 January to elect chairpersons of the GPMs and the ZPMs.
In a notification, the chief secretary stated that “the date for the first meeting should be across the state, so as to maintain uniformity in the five-year term of all GPMs and ZPMs.”
Arunachal has 8,216 GPMs and 242 ZPMs. Nearly 114 gram panchayat constituencies (GPC) have fallen vacant across 14 districts. Changlang topped the constituencies’ vacancy table with 40 seats, including one ZPM seat, and Lower Subansiri has 35 vacant GPCs out of 710 GPCs.
The State Election Commission (SEC) had on Wednesday informed that polling would take place on 11 January for the Hawai North ZPC in Anjaw district and one ZPC in Vijaynagar in Changlang district.
Election to the two ZPCs was suspended by the SEC on the ground of a legal petition against the Hawai North ZPC and after violence occurred in Vijaynagar over extending PR electoral rights to ex-Assam Rifles settlers.
