Gandhinagar: Out of the 4,564 gram panchayats for which elections were announced by the Gujarat State Election Commission (SEC) last month, 751 have been declared “Samras”, meaning they were won without any contest. These include gram panchayats headed for general or midterm elections, or newly formed after restructuring of existing ones.

According to an official SEC release on Friday, these 751 panchayats saw the unanimous selection of sarpanch and ward members under the state’s Samras scheme, which encourages consensus-based leadership and offers government incentives to such villages. Among the remaining 3,813 panchayats, elections will not be conducted in 271 due to partial Samras selections or lack of candidates. Therefore, voting will take place in 3,541 gram panchayats on June 22.

Additionally, by-elections were also announced for 3,524 gram panchayats, but among these, only 353 will go to the polls as 3,171 panchayats have seats that remain vacant due to uncontested results or non-filing of nominations.

In total, voting will be held for 3,656 sarpanch seats and 16,224 member seats in gram panchayats under the general, mid-term, division, and by-elections. Approximately 81 lakh voters are expected to cast their votes in this election, the SEC said on Friday.

A total of 10,479 polling stations have been set up for these polls, including 3,939 sensitive and 336 highly sensitive polling stations.

Voting for the gram panchayat elections will take place on June 22, 2025, from 7:00 am to 6:00 pm and will be conducted using ballot papers and ballot boxes.

Additional police forces and patrolling have been arranged at polling stations where voting is scheduled. Special security arrangements have been made at sensitive and highly sensitive stations to ensure that voters can cast their votes without fear. DeshGujarat