Third phase of panchayat polls held in Haryana

Barring isolated incidents of violence in Mewat, the third and final phase of the Haryana Panchayat polls passed off peafully today.
As many as 10,316 panches, 95 sarpanches and 30 members of panchayat samitis have been elected unanimously during the third and final phase of fifth general elections to the Panchayati Raj Institutions in
Haryana, held today.
Barring isolated incidents of violence in Mewat where an EVM (electronic voting machine) was allegedly broken by miscreants, the polls were conducted in a peaceful, free and fair manner, officials said.
More than 86.3 per cent voters cast their ballots in the state, and the final voter turnout is likely to be higher when all figures will be tabulated, he said.

State Election Commissioner, Rajeev Sharma said here today that repolling was conducted in booths number 116 to 120 of Gram Panchayat Indri in Mewat district and village Alieka of Taoru Block.

He said counting of votes for the posts of sarpanches and panches began immediately after closing of polls and results of 613 posts of sarpanches were declared up to 7 pm this evening.
He said that according to the reports received so far, the highest turnout was recorded in Sirsa at 91.3 per cent.
Sharma further said during the third phase, elections were held for 1,646 seats of sarpanches, 16,126 seats of panches, 781 seats of Member Panchayat Samitis and 104 seats of Member Zila Parishad.

He said that 27,30,926 voters were eligible to cast their ballot at 5,231 polling booths during the third phase. Of these, 1,021 polling booths had been identified as hyper-sensitive and 1,154 as sensitive.
He said that about 11,500 single-post EVMs were used for election to all seats of sarpanch and Member Zila Parishad.
He said in the third phase, 10,316 candidates have already been elected unanimously for the post of panch, 95 for sarpanch and 30 for Member Panachayat Samiti.