Bhopal, Dec 4 (PTI) The pending elections for the three-tier Panchayat system in Madhya Pradesh will be held in three phases in January and February next year, the State Election Commission announced on Saturday. The tenure of these Panchayat bodies had ended in March 2020 but elections were delayed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Polling for 859 posts of district panchayats across 52 districts, 6,727 posts of 313 Janpad Panchayats, Sarpanch of 22,581 village panchayats and 3,62,754 posts of Panch members will be held in three phases, state election commissioner B P Singh told reporters. In the first phase, polling for 6,283 village panchayats and 85 Janpad Panchayats across nine districts will be held on January 6, 2022. The polling for 110 Janpad Panchayats and 8,015 village Panchayats across seven districts will be held in the second phase on January 28. Elections for 8,397 village panchayats and 118 Janpad panchayats across 36 districts will be held on February 16 in the third phase, Singh said. The process of filing nominations for the first and second phases will start from December 13. Counting for sarpanch and panch elections will be held at the booth after the polling, while the votes for Janpad Panchayat and Jila Panchayat members will be counted at the block headquarters. Results of election for Janpad panchayat members will be announced at the block headquarters on February 22. The results of Jila panchayat members" election will be declared at the district headquarters on February 23, Singh said. The commission has about 55,000 Electronic Voting Machines available for these elections, he added. All COVID-19 prevention protocols will be followed during the process, the state election commissioner said. As many as 3.92 crore voters including 2.02 crore male and 1.90 crore female ones will be eligible to exercise franchise across 71,398 booths. About 4.25 lakh employees will be deployed for election duty. As many as 15,863 booths have been categorized as "sensitive" while 6,233 are identified as "very sensitive", Singh said. Previous elections for 3,91,066 posts at different levels of panchayat system were held in 2014-15. The tenure of these elected representatives ended in March 2020, just when the pandemic began. Elections for 114 village panchayats whose tenure is to end after March 2022 will be held separately, Singh said. PTI ADU KRK KRK