By Admin 
Voting for the elections of 12 Zilla Parishads and 125 Panchayat Samitis in 12 districts of Maharashtra began today (February 7) morning amid tight security arrangements. A total of 7,438 candidates are in the fray in this election for 731 Zilla Parishad seats and 1,462 Panchayat Samiti seats. More than two crore eligible voters can exercise their franchise in this election.
After voting today, counting of votes will begin on February 9.
This voting is being held to elect representatives in the district councils of Raigarh, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Parbhani, Dharashiv and Latur of Maharashtra and the Panchayat Committees under them. Voting started at 7:30 in the morning and will continue till 5:30 in the evening. The counting of votes will start on February 9 at 10 am, after which the model code of conduct imposed in these districts will be lifted.
This time, the Pune Zilla Parishad elections are in the news the most, because for a long time the NCP led by the Ajit Pawar family has been considered a strong stronghold of this Zilla Parishad. Today at the time of voting, late Ajit Pawar’s brother Srinivas Pawar along with his son Yugendra Pawar reached a polling booth in a school in Katewadi in the morning to cast his vote. At the same time, Deputy Chief Minister Sunetra Pawar will also vote along with Parth Pawar and her mother-in-law Ashatai Pawar.
Voting was postponed due to Ajit Pawar’s death
The voting was originally scheduled to take place on 5 February, but was postponed due to the death of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in a plane crash on 28 January and the subsequent declaration of three days of state mourning. In this, a total of 2,624 candidates are contesting for 731 Zilla Parishad seats. Of these, 369 seats are reserved for women, 83 for Scheduled Caste, 25 for Scheduled Tribe and 191 for Other Backward Classes (OBC).
Similarly, 4,814 candidates are in the fray for 1,462 Panchayat Samiti seats. Of these, 731 seats are reserved for women, 166 for Scheduled Caste, 38 for Scheduled Tribe and 342 for OBC. The voter list includes 1,06,33,269 men, 1,01,86,965 women and 468 voters from other categories. A total of 25,471 polling stations have been created for this. About 1.28 lakh personnel have also been deployed for election duty.