The Hindu 05.06.2013
Local body elections unlikely for the next six months
Only now, the government has constituted a delimitation panel
With the process of delimitation yet to gain momentum, the conduct of elections to the local bodies in the Union Territory of Puducherry is unlikely for the next six months.
The elections, which were originally scheduled to be held on 4, 8 and 10 December, 2012 by the State Election Commission (SEC), were deferred as per the direction of Madras High Court that had asked the territorial administration to carry out the delimitation and reservation of municipal, commune and panchayat wards based on 2011 census data.
The Supreme Court of India, which heard the Special Leave Petition (SLP) by the Puducherry unit of CPI (M), had also directed the Puducherry government to complete the delimitation process within two months after getting the census data in order to conduct the civic elections.
Almost six months have passed since the deferment of local body polls in Puducherry, which witnessed last civil elections in 2006. But, the government has just now constituted a delimitation panel headed by G. Panneerselvam, former Director of Higher Education.
Official sources told The Hindu that considering the huge exercise involving delimitation and reservation process it might not be possible for the administration to complete all the mandatory and statutory formalities in the next six months to conduct the local body polls.
The panel would have to obtain complete details of the 2011 Census from the department, which is yet come out with many aspects of the Census. It had to carry out the detailed survey of the population of five municipalities such as Oulgaret, Puducherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam. Similarly, the panel had to delimit the areas of 122 municipal councillors, 98 commune panchayat council members, 98 village panchayats, 815 village panchayat ward members in 10 commune panchayats.
Sources added that there were instances in which delimitation of local bodies took minimum of six months to one year. Notification of delimitation process, calling for objections from the residents, voters, political parties and others were mandatory for the completion of delimitation process. It might consume considerable time, officials said. Moreover, the delimitation exercise should get the support of political parties as some of them are of the view that the area of Member of Legislative Assembly constituencies itself was very small. If civic elections were held, it would take away the power of MLAs to a great extent.
However, most of the major political parties, particularly the Communist Party of India (M), are openly pitching for civic body elections. The term of the elected civic representatives ended in July 2010. Since then the civic bodies have been directly administered by the officials of local administration.
