Chandigarh: An estimated 85 per voters on Wednesday exercised their franchise for elections to 13,080 Gram Panchayats and 81,412 wards across Punjab which were by and large peaceful.
The overall turnout was 85 per cent, State Election Commissioner S S Brar told reporters here.
The exercise was held to elect sarpanchs (village heads) and panchs (village members).
The polling was by and large peaceful with no report of any major untoward incident, Brar said.
The voting in 12 wards and three gram panchayats was cancelled due to technical reason and re-polling would be held in these constituencies later.
Over 52,000 police personnel were deputed to ensure free, fair and peaceful polling.
As many as 27,759 candidates tried their luck for 13,080 sarpanch seats and over one lakh for 81,412 panch seats.
Around 1900 sarpanchs and 21,251 panchs had already been declared elected unopposed.
As many as 214 sarpanchs were declared elected from Gurdaspur, 198 from Patiala and 177 from Jalandhar.
Similarly, 2404 panchs were elected uncontested from Hoshiarpur, 2283 from Jalandhar and 2067 from Ludhiana, the state Election Commission said.
PTI
