28 Jan, 14:45 (IST)

A night before the polls, the father of a Sarpanch candidate in Bijapur was abducted by the Naxals. The victim's bullet ridden body was thrown by them in the poll-bound region in the early hours of the day.

28 Jan, 10:54 (IST)

Voting is currently underway for the Chhattisgarh gram panchayat elections 2020. The counting of votes is expected to begin after 3 pm. Stay tuned here for all the updates.

Raipur, January 28: The first phase of Chhattisgarh gram panchayat elections 2020 is currently underway, with the results slated for declaration after the end of polls. The voting is underway in 57 development blocks, housing a total of 4,847 gram panchayats. A total of 61,74,224 voters are eligible to exercise their right to franchise in the polls being held today. Stay tuned here for the live news and updates of Chhattisgarh rural civic polls, followed by the trends and results of the same.

Out of the total registered electorate, 30.85 lakh are men and 30.88 lakh women, whereas, 69 voters are from the third gender. For the smooth conduct of the polls, the State Election Commission (SEC) has deployed nearly 80,000 polling officials along with 976 sector officers. Security has also been beefed up around the 12,572 voting stations earmarked by the SEC.

In the naxal-affected areas, voting began at 6:45 am and is scheduled to end at 2 pm. In other regions, the polling went underway at 7 am and would conclude at 3 pm. Adequate amount of voting was recorded in the first couple of hours, the local media reports said.

Chhattisgarh, in the last two major elections, has thrown up varying results. In the 2018 assembly polls, a landslide victory was registered by the Bhupesh Baghel-led Congress. Barely five months after the Raman Singh-led 15-year-old BJP dispensation was uprooted, the saffron party ended up winning 9 out of the 10 parliamentary seats in the general elections.