After ‘Successful’ Panchayat Polls In Kashmir Last Year, 61% Of Seats Lie Empty thewire.in

When the Jammu and Kashmir government-held panchayat elections in Kashmir last December, it described the exercise as an “achievement”. Even the Centre complimented the state administration for the “successful” polls. On Sunday, for the first time since then, state chief electoral officer Shailendra Kumar shared details on how many panchayat berths have remained vacant in Kashmir, owing to people’s non-participation in the electoral exercise. The numbers speak for themselves: approximately 61% of panch and sarpanch seats across 10 districts of Kashmir are lying vacant.

In the Valley’s 137 blocks, there are a total of 19,582 panch and sarpanch seats. But only 7,528 of these positions were contested and subsequently, according to the data Kumar revealed at a press conference in Srinagar on Sunday. Kumar said that 12,054 (61.5%) of panch and sarpanch berths – almost double the number of elected representatives – are still empty. The number of vacant seats in Kashmir is far more than in Jammu and Ladakh, where just 103 and 24 positions, respectively, are vacant.