BJP ahead after first day of counting in Assam panchayat polls; saffron party gets 45 percent votes followed by Congress

Guwahati: The BJP has won the highest number of seats in the first day of the counting of panchayat polls in Assam on Wednesday, with 45 percent of declared results going in its favour, followed by the Congress, the state election commission said. [caption id=“attachment_5598681” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] Addressing a press conference Assam State Election Commissioner HN Bora said the counting to all the 26,808 posts would continue the whole night and was likely to take entire Thursday. Ballot papers were used in the panchayat polls. “Till now, we have results for 1,218 posts. Out of this, 1,089 posts are gaon panchayat members (GPM), 71 gaon panchayat presidents (GPP) and 58 anchalik panchayat members (APM). No final result of any Zila Parishad member (ZPM) is available,” he added. The BJP has bagged 481 GPM posts, followed by 294 by the Congress, 115 by AGP, 15 by AIUDF, five by CPM, two by CPI and Independents emerged victorious at 175 seats, Bora said. The BJP won 33 GPP posts, Congress 20, AGP 10, AIUDF two posts and Independents six. The BJP bagged 30 APM seats, while the Congress won 15, AGP 8 , AIUDF two and Independents bagged three. “The counting is going on peacefully. No anomalies have been reported from any counting hall in any part of the state,” Bora said. The elections were held on 5 and 9 December to elect 21,990 GPM, 2,199 GPP, 2,199 APM and 420 ZPM across the state, recording an overall voting of 82 percent. While there were 78,571 contestants, 734 were elected uncontested.