Jaipur: More than 1.06 crore voters will cast their ballots Friday to elect 3,626 sarpanch and 33,804 ward panch across Rajasthan’s gram panchayats in the second phase of panchayat elections. While there are 21,839 candidates for sarpanch posts in the fray, 45 were elected unopposed.The nomination process, including scrutiny and withdrawal of candidature, was completed Thursday with election symbols allotted and the final list of candidates released the same day. Of the 1 crore voters, 55,19,336 are men and 51,36,744 are women. Polling will be held from 7am to 6pm, followed by counting immediately after voting, with results expected by late night.Meanwhile, Rajasthan recorded a final voter turnout of 65.1% Wednesday in the second phase of elections for zila parishad and panchayat samiti members across 124 panchayat samitis and 352 zila parishad wards.A total of 1,06,56,127 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise in the second phase. Polling will be conducted at 11,799 booths across the state.Unlike elections to zila parishads and panchayat samitis, voting for sarpanch and ward panch posts will be conducted through ballot papers, not electronic voting machines (EVMs). Each voter will cast two votes — one for a ward panch candidate and the other for a sarpanch candidate.The ballot papers will be prepared by the polling parties in the respective gram panchayats after the final list of candidates is released. There will be separate ballot papers for ward panch and sarpanch elections, with candidates’ names written by hand against their allotted election symbols.Jodhpur district will witness the highest number of elections in this phase, with voting for 442 sarpanch and 3,768 ward panch posts. Kota will have the fewest, with elections in 47 gram panchayats for 47 sarpanch and 505 ward panch posts.
