A high-voltage campaign for the first phase of the Assam Panchayat polls, dominated by the issues of farmers, jobs and corruption, came to an end Monday evening.
Polling will be held in 16 districts on December 5. The electoral process will be held from 7 am to 3 pm. A total of 43,515 candidates are in the fray in the first phase.Total number of polling stations are 14077.
The BJP and the opposition AGP, Congress, AIUDF fielded their top leaders in the campaign. Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal, Himanta Biswa Sarma along with the senior leaders campaigned for the ruling party till the last day. Assam Congress chief Ripun Bora, Rockybul Hussain, Apurba Bhattacharya and other party leaders had addressed various rallies across the state.
AGP leaders Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, Atul Borah, Kumar Dipak Das also campaigned for the regional party.
The BJP top brass targeted the Gandhi family during the campaign for the "misrule" of 50 years.
The Congress focused on farmers' issues, promising loan waiver, bonus on paddy procurement and setting up of food processing units.
Altogether 734 candidates were declared elected unopposed, including 442 candidates for the first phase and 292 for the second phase in Assam Panchayat Polls, 2018 – according to the reports of Assam State Election Commission.
The highest number of BJP candidates were elected unopposed in the two-phase panchayat polls, which will be held on December 5 and 9. The Congress and AGP were second and third respectively.
An official sources, these candidates, 380 are from the BJP, 193 from the Congress, 28 from the AGP, 10 from the AIUDF, one from the CPM, five from the Bodoland Peoples Front (BPF) and 117 Independents.
According to figures available with the State Election Commission, 78,571 candidates are contesting for the 26,808 PRI seats. Altogether 1,512 are contesting for the 420 Zila Parishad member seats, 7,004 contesting for 2,199 Anchalik Panchayat member seats, 7,667 candidates are in the fray for 2,199 Gaon Panchayat president seats and 62,388 candidates vying for the 21,990 gaon panchayat member seats.
