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.
