J&K panchayat polls: Voting underway for fifth phase amid tight security

Voting is taking place in 2,512 polling stations out of which 769 are in the Kashmir division and 1,743 in Jammu division.
Jammu/Srinagar: Voting is currently underway for the fifth phase of panchayat polls across Jammu and Kashmir amid tight security on Thursday.
Voting is taking place in 2,512 polling stations out of which 769 are in the Kashmir division and 1,743 in Jammu division.
According to AIR, the polling began at 8 AM and will end at 2 PM.
A total of 848 polling stations have been categorised as ‘hyper-sensitive’ – 755 in Kashmir and 93 in Jammu division.
Nearly 4,763 candidates are in the fray in this phase of polls for 309 posts of ‘sarpanch’ and 1,534 ‘panch’ while 118 sarpanchs and 1,046 panchs have been already elected unopposed.
Some 404,283 electors will be voting in the sarpanch constituencies and 270,295 for panch constituencies.
Photo Voter Slips have been distributed among the voters to inform them of their polling stations.
In the first phase of polls, held on November 17, 74.1 percent polling was recorded while in phase two which was held on November 20 the overall turnout was 71.1 percent.
In the third phase on November 23, the state witnessed a polling percentage of 75.2 percent while in phase four held on November 27, 71.3 per cent voting was recorded.
The nine-phased panchayat polls will end on December 17.
Panchayat polls were last held in the state in 2011.