Lucknow, Dec 27 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh Panchayati Raj department has appointed administrators in all the 58,656 village Panchayats in the state after expiry of the five-year term of the village pradhans.

The Assistant Development Officers (ADO) have been made the administrators in all the Panchayats while the government has removed the digital signatures of the village pradhans from the portal of the e-gram swaraj to prevent any fraud.

The elections could not be held prior to the expiry of the Panchayat term due to the pandemic.

Uttar Pradesh State Election Commission is now preparing for the Panchayat polls and there is a possibility that the election could be held in four phases early next year.

The elections of the Gram Pradhans, member Gram Sabha, and member Kshetra Panchayat and member district Panchayat will be held simultaneously.

Presently, the process of revision of electoral rolls is underway and the final voter list is expected to be published next month.

The process of delimitation and reservation of wards for the SC, and OBCs will be completed by the third week of February next year and the State Election Commission is likely to issue the election notification as soon as the reservation of wards is completed.

The terms of the Gram Panchayat ended on December 25 while that of the Kshetra Panchayat and district Panchayat are ending on January 14 and March 18, respectively.

While assistant development officers of the development block have been appointed as administrator of the Gram Sabha, the SDM will be appointed in place of block pramukh and district magistrate will be the administrator of the district panchayat.