West polling strong and peaceful

GANGTOK, 03 Nov: West Sikkim too was heading towards the 80%+ voter turnout as per details shared by the DC [West] LB Chettri late this evening. The official tally for the district appeared set to come only very late in the night since only does West district have the most number of panchayat constituents, it is also the one where, given the road conditions, the polling officers will take the longest to report back to headquarters.
Till close to 10 in the night, the process of submission of EVMs to the district control room was still underway. From the figures posted by data recorded till the time of going to print, West Sikkim is likely to record between 75 to 80% polling.
The district had 275 polling stations for the 23 Zilla panchayats [out of 28] and 136 panchayat wards [out of 317] which required polling after the rest were secured by the ruling party uncontested.
The 23 Zilla panchayats had 31 Independents pitched against SDF candidates in the district, with 6 seats with 3 or more candidates in the race. For the 136 panchayat wards which went to poll today, there were 151 Independents in the fray.
The DC [West] also informs that defective EVMs were replaced at four polling stations - Malbasey, Budang, Upper Martam and Sadhugaon. Save some minor incidents, the polling was peaceful in West district as well.