Jharkhand State Election Commission on Monday announced to hold elections for five Municipal Corporations, 16 Nagar Parishad and 13 Nagar Panchayats on April 16 in the State.
With release of the election notification, the Commission imposed Model Code of Conduct from March 12.
Giving the details of key dates during a press meet, State Election Commissioner NN Pandey said, “The nomination filing procedure will initiate from March 16 and will continue till March 22 from 11 AM to 3 PM. Scrutiny will be done on March 23 while the process of taking the names back from the poll will be done on March 27. Election symbols will be allotted to contestants on March 28 from 11 AM to 3 PM. Counting of votes will be done on April 20 from 8 AM onwards. On 21 April, final result will be published.”
Based on Census 2011 and in accordance with Jharkhand Municipal Act-2011, clause 16 (5), the upcoming municipal poll-2018 will be conducted that defines constitution of bodies at different level once the five years’ tenure of elected representatives of Municipal Corporation, Nagar Parishad and Nagar Panchayat gets complete.
In accordance to the total population, the contestants have been allowed to spend funds. Area with a population of 10 lakh and above -contestants for the post of Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Chairman and Vice-Chairman have been allowed to expend upto Rs25 lakh while the ward councilors have been granted the permission to spend upto Rs5 lakh.
Areas with less than 10 lakh population - person contesting municipal poll for the post of Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Chairman, Vice-Chairman can spend upto Rs15 lakh while ward councilors have been permitted to utilize upto Rs3 lakh. Contestants for the post of Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Nagar Palika will be allowed to expend upto Rs. 10 lakh while the councilors have been allowed to spend upto Rs 2 lakh. Areas with population around 50 thousand, there the candidates for the post of President and Vice-president have been allowed to spent upto Rs6 lakh while councilors can use upto Rs 1.5 lakh on different election activities.
According to the officials of State Election Commission, candidates filing the nominations for contesting election must have six mandatory documents like affidavit mentioning the past record especially criminal charges, if any imposed earlier on them, caste certificate for reserved seats etc.
Over 12,337 polling booths have been identified by the State Election Commission. As many as 12 portable mobile polling booths will be there for the voters’ convenience at different places. The Commission Officials confirmed that vulnerability mapping of polling booths have been completed. Also, the officials assured that first level checking of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) has been done by the engineers of Bharat Electronic Limited. Option of None of the Above (NOTA) will be also there on the EVMs.
Approximately, 22 lakh electorates are expected to cast their vote in the upcoming municipal poll-2018, as per the records available with State Election Commission.
Further sharing the details of preparation, the State Election Commissioner said, “Recruitment of general observers and expenditure observers will be done soon. Training of Assistant Returning Officers (AROs) and Returning Officers (ROs) has been completed in two phases.”
DGP DK Pandey, Home Secretary SKG Rahate, ADG (Operations) RK Mallick and Principal Secretary, Department of Urban Development and Housing Arun Kumar Singh were also present on the occasion.