Partyless panchayat polls in Sikkim; trendsetter for entire country

This time Sikkim had a party-less panchayat election, a trendsetter for the whole country. 

In the 2-tier panchayat election, the overall polling percentage was 75.5. The entire election process remained peaceful and no violence was reported from any of the polling booths till counting day.

The Sikkim State Election Commission this time attempted to conduct an eco-friendly and digitalized panchayat election.  

During campaigning, the Commission had encouraged all concerned to make the entire election process eco-friendly and discouraged the use of single-use plastics during meetings and urged people to use only eco-friendly banners and posters.

The panchayat election was a party-less one. No symbol of any political party was used. This change was brought about in Sikkim through an amendment of the Panchayat Act in 2020. 

The voting for panchayat elections started at 8 am and ended by 6 pm in all the polling stations across Sikkim. 

Of the 1,147 Gram Panchayat Wards, polling was held in 695 wards while in 448 wards the results had already been declared uncontested. Four wards are scheduled for re-poll. Out of 122 Zila Panchayat Territorial Constituencies, 102 went to the polls while results for 19 constituencies had already been declared uncontested.