The Indian Express                     30.03.2013 

PMC polls postponed

With over 20,000 claims and objections received from voters for the delay in completing the pre-electoral exercise for the polls for the Panchkula Municipal Corporation (PMC), and the delimitation of wards having got delayed, the polls to the PMC have been postponed for June 15 from the scheduled March 15 deadline. The Haryana government has taken the ground of the whopping number of claims and objections received before the state election commission.

According to state and election commission officials, the delay in delimitation of the wards of the PMC and the large number of objections that were received led to the re-drawing of the deadline of the Corporation elections. PMC Commissioner, Ashima Brar, said that the government sought the extension in the deadline for the revision of electoral rolls as the claims and objections received from people were large in number. According to the draft voter list, there are 2.19 lakh voters eligible to cast their votes for the elections.

The residents had complained that their names were not included in the draft voter list that was circulated by the government and some objections had also been received about the wrong inclusion of names and the addresses in the voter list. Election Commission officials said that the deadline for the PMC polls was revised and the polls could not be held in time as the delimitation of wards had not been done on time. "We received a list of delimited wards only by January 15 from the state government and that is the reason the revision of voter list could not be done on time, which led to the delay in the elections," said a state election commission official, wishing not to be quoted.

However Brar said that the delimitation of wards was held as per government schedule and that the process could not be started earlier as the case over the status of Panchkula Municipal Corporation (PMC) was pending with the Supreme Court and the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

"There were litigations going on over the status of PMC due to which the wards could not be delimited on time. After the Corporation was constituted cases were filed against the government decision," said Brar.