Lucknow, May 3 (IANS): More than half a dozen candidates in the Uttar Pradesh Panchayat polls have died before they were declared elected.

Repoll will now be held on these seats.

Pinky, who contested the village head's post in Kurawali in Mainpuri district, won the election on Sunday. However, she died before the counting could take place.

In Rasoolpur village in Firozabad, Babulal was declared elected but he passed away on April 25.

Savita won the Gram Panchayat election in Naura village in Amroha on Sunday but lost the battle for life two days ago.

In Bhogala village in Unnao, Shivkali also won the elections but died two days before she could be declared elected.

In Jaunpur's Ramnagar block, Ram Chandra died before he was declared elected as village head.

Vimla Devi in Kapuri Ekauna village in Deoria district died an hour before counting began on Sunday. She was declared elected, hours after her cremation took place.

In Barhalganj in Gorakhpur, Pawn Sahni won the election from Jaitpur village but did not live to see himself being elected.

In some other districts, the winning candidates have also died though their details were not immediately available.

According to reports, most of the candidates died following Covid like symptoms but none of them had got themselves tested or treated because they did not wish to be barred from the counting process.

State Election Commission (SEC) officials said that the process for repoll would begin after the entire counting process has been wrapped up.