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Mayoral polls in Ranchi likely by June

Tuesday, 30 April 2013 06:51 administrator
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The Pioneer             30.04.2013

Mayoral polls in Ranchi likely by June

The State Election Commission (SEC) is working out a plan to hold fresh mayoral elections in Ranchi in the next two months.

SEC sources said the commission would direct the district administration to address discrepancies in the electoral rolls before that. SEC had received complaints of many discrepancies, during the elections on April 8.

The earlier mayoral election was rescinded on April 20 by Governor Syed Ahmed on recommendation of the commission following recovery of cash a day before Ranchi went to polls. About Rs 22 lakh had been seized from a hotel in the State capital on April 7. An FIR was registered against three persons, including Rama Khalkho.

Rescinding of mayoral elections on grounds of misuse of money is said to be a first-of-its-kind action in the country, where Jharkhand has shown the way to uphold the sanctity of elections to the urban body. Earlier, the Election Commission of India had also rescinded the Rajya Sabha elections in Jharkhand in 2012 following recovery of cash.

A senior official pointed out that the SEC had made recommendations on authority granted to it under various provisions of the Constitution, supported by several high court and Supreme Court judgements. 

The official pointed out that the SEC has also taken cognisance of lack of amenities at the polling stations during the April 8 elections and has sought reports on alleged mismanagement from the district administration.

According to sources, the SEC has decided to take up the matter to avoid inconvenience to polling officials in the next mayoral election. “The commission is likely to work out the number of polling stations for mayoral election afresh and may reduce the number,” said a source.

Meanwhile, results of the councillors’ elections for the six wards of RMC will be announced on May 2. Deputy Mayor of RMC will be elected on May 9, in the first meeting of the board of the corporation.

 

BJP wins four mayoral seats in U’khand local body elections

Tuesday, 30 April 2013 00:00 administrator
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The Statesman             30.04.2013

BJP wins four mayoral seats in U’khand local body elections

DEHRADUN, 30 APRIL: The Bharatiya Janata Party put one over the ruling Congress in the state, winning four out of six mayoral seats in the local body elections in Uttarakhand, including the prestigious Dehradun Nagar Nigam mayoral seat where the BJP's sitting candidate, Mr Vinod Chamoli created history by winning the seat for the second consecutive time.

In the 31 Nagar Palika and Nagar Panchayat seats (of a total of 69) for which the results have been declared so far it is almost a tie with the Congress winning 12 seats while 11 went into the BJP's kitty. Mr Chamoli got a thumping victory in the Dehradun Nagar Nigam mayoral election, defeating Mr Surya Kant Dhasmana of the Congress by a margin of 23,000 votes. While congratulating the BJP candidate on his win, Mr Dhasmana said he accepted the people`s mandate but added that the party would examine the reasons for the defeat. The party leaders feel that the BSP had taken away a large share of the votes from the Congress leading to this unexpected result in Dehradun.

BJP candidates also won the mayor`s seats in Hardwar. Roorkee and Haldwani. However, the counting for the two Nagar Nigam seats of Kashipur and Rudrapur will be done later as a large number of votes here are postal ballots. In Haldwani, Jogendra Rautela got a marginal win by defeating the Samajwadi party candidate by just 1409 votes. The Roorkee mayor`s seat was captured by Mr Yaspal Rana of BJP, overcoming a tough challenge from his Congress counterpart. These local body elections which were considered as a litmus test for the BJP and a referendum on a year's rule by the Congress government have not given enough reasons for either of the arch rivals to rejoice.

While BJP made a clean sweep in the Nagar Nigam seats wining all four for which the results have been declared so far, Congress got a slight edge on the seats of Nagar Palika and Nagar panchayats. Congress won 12 of these seats and BJP won in just 11, while eight have been captured by the independents. The real picture will be clear by Wednesday when the final counting should be over.

 

This time, it’s a ‘Social’ election

Tuesday, 30 April 2013 00:00 administrator
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The Deccan Chronicle                30.04.2013

This time, it’s a ‘Social’ election

Candidates have taken the poll battle to Facebook and Twitter; the BBMP and the Election Commission are organising flash mobs, street plays, even film stars into the act of getting people to vote; NGOs and corporates are doing their bit, too..
Candidates have taken the poll battle to Facebook and Twitter; the BBMP and the Election Commission are organising flash mobs, street plays, even film stars into the act of getting people to vote; NGOs and corporates are doing their bit, too..
 
Bengaluru: Elections come and elections go. Life in Bengaluru goes on like nothing happened. That used to be true, but not any more. The run-up to Assembly elections 2013 has been markedly different. There, in fact, has never been so much buzz about elections on the street, outside television channels and the newspapers. And it’s not because the political parties are cluttering the city with posters and billboards – the Election Commission is seeing to it that they don’t.
 
Which is why the shift in the way elections are being seen this time is welcome change and has added excitement to what had become an affair to be mostly cynical about and to be best forgotten quickly.
 
Of course, there are the usual fiery election speeches and campaigns, the promises that the regular run-of-the-mill politician has been making every election for as long as one can remember, and the door-to-door visits of MLA-hopefuls, but what has increasingly drawn attention is election chatter online – innovative campaigns on social media platforms, billboards and advertisements – which has made this election 2013 a lot more interactive affair between the voter and the aspirants than ever before.
 
Some of the buzz can be attributed to the new, activist candidates, such as the Lok Satta party’s candidates Ashwin Mahesh (Bommanahalli) and Meenakshi Bharath (Malleswaram), who have gathered their forces and joined battle as much on Facebook as on the ground. Some of it is due to the many initiatives launched by civil society groups and prominent people of the city to get the educated urban middle class to vote.
 
The city’s movers and shakers have come out on the streets and online urging people to vote, working overtime discussing elections and highlighting the need for each eligible voter to vote.
 
This is a path much different from what cool Bengaluru has taken so far -- criticising the system, calling politics ‘dirty’ and staying indifferent when the time comes to choose one’s representative.
 
Why, even the BBMP is organising flash mobs -- full of song and dance -- to appeal to the youth. Street plays, innovative and appealing posters, walkathons to vote, all of them designed to send out one message: Get out and vote.  
 
The Election Commission itself is counting on a saree-clad, homely-looking Aindrita Ray – quite unlike the sizzler on the Sandalwood screen -- to pull voters out to the polling booths. Popular actors Puneet Rajkumar and Ramesh Aravind are helping her create voter awareness. Even Olympic medalists, boxer Mary Kom and badminton champion Saina Nehwal, are at it -- trying to get Bengalureans to vote, which after all is an Olympian task.
 
Thanks to citizen groups and NGOs, many private companies in the city have decided to become ‘100 per cent voter-registered’ companies. These companies had gotten thousands of employees to register by mid-April.
 
Smart Vote, an online registration campaign, started approaching schools, colleges, private companies and residents’ associations in September last year, vowing to get one million Bengalureans to register as voters.
 
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