Two gram panchayats in Junagadh and one in Amreli districts go to election after every three months. One seat each in Mota Gujariya and Bhatt Vavdi villages in Junagadh and Juna Charkha village in Amreli are placed under the Scheduled Tribe category.

Notifications for holding elections on these seats have been issued over a dozen times since 2006, when the last gram panchayat elections were held. But as not a single person from the ST category resides here, the seats have remained vacant.

According to Junagadh district election branch officials, the ST category seats in Mota Gujariya village have been put under reserved category in ward no 1 and 2 for a female and a male respectively. In Bhatt Vavdi village, the seat is reserved in ward no 7 for a male. Similar is the case for ward no 1 in Juna Charkha village of Dhari taluka in Amreli district.

Aswini Kumar, Junagadh District collector and District Election Officer said: “As per rule, the issuance of election notification is necessary till a vacant seat is not filled. As of now, these villages do not have any ST category residents. So, the seats remain vacant in the absence of ST candidates.”

According to Junagadh district election officials, these villages had ST population when the delimitation process was carried out.

“They might have been migrant labourers working on nearby dam sites who left the villages after the completion of work. But, their reserved category seats exists and as per rule, the elections have been scheduled after every three months,” said an official. This year, notifications for organising elections in these villages were issued in January, April and July.

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