Rupesh Samant

Panaji, Feb 21: State Election Commission Friday announced that the elections for all the 50 constituencies of Zilla Panchayats (ZP) would be held on March 22.

State Election Commissioner R K Srivastava told a press conference that the election for both Zilla Panchayat bodies – North Goa and South Goa – would be held on March 22.

The nomination process for the election will start from February 27 till March 05, 2020. Srivastava said that the counting of votes will be done on March 23. The voting would be held through Ballot papers, he added.

Commissioner said that there are 15 Returning Officers appointed across Goa. 4.8 lakh voters from North Goa and 4.11 lakh voters from South Goa are eligible to vote in this election.

Srivastava said that the model code of conduct comes in session from February 21 onwards which will cover all the panchayat and also municipal areas. The voting would be held across 1237 polling booths including 641 in North Goa and 596 from South Goa.

The election would be held on party lines, he said adding that the candidate has an upper limit of Rs five lakh for the expenditure.

Srivastava said that the general and expenditure observers would be keeping a strict vigil on the election process to ensure that there is no violation.

Out of total 50 constituencies, one is reserved for Scheduled Caste, fourteen for Other Backward Classes and six for the scheduled tribe, he said