The Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister DK Shivakumar in Mangaluru, decided to buy ballot boxes and plan for live webcasting of the polling process. The government has already amended the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj Act to provide for voting through ballot papers in panchayat elections. The amendment provides for a secret ballot paper system.
The elections to gram, taluk and zilla panchayats are expected to be held by December after completion of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. The terms of the elected bodies have expired, with gram panchayat elections last held in December 2020 and taluk and zilla panchayat elections due since 2021.
The Karnataka High Court last week recorded that the state government had completed ward formation and seat reservation for all 5,864 gram panchayats and said it was now for the State Election Commission (SEC) to take further steps to conduct the elections.
Shivakumar had said in July that the government planned to complete elections to local bodies, including gram, taluk and zilla panchayats and the Greater Bengaluru Authority, by December after the Supreme Court extended the timeline for the Bengaluru civic polls in view of the ongoing SIR exercise.
The decision to return to paper ballots for local body elections was announced by the government earlier this year. The move also comes amid a wider political debate over the use of EVMs.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had raised allegations of irregularities in electoral rolls and voting in the Mahadevapura Assembly segment of the Bangalore Central Lok Sabha constituency during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The Congress subsequently made the issue a prominent part of its nationwide political campaign.
