Odisha proposes to amend Panchayat poll rules

Bhubaneswar: Ahead of the three-tier Panchayat polls to be held next year, the Odisha government has decided to amend the rules to conduct the three-tier elections in the state. 

The Panchayati Raj Department has issued three draft rules for conducting the Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad polls.

As per the draft rules, the counting of votes will be done on a date scheduled by the State Election Commission (SEC). The counting of votes is most likely to be done on a different date to be fixed by the SEC.

In the last Panchayat polls, the counting was done on the same day of the poll.

The SEC further proposed to have central counting at Block headquarters instead of counting at the booth level.