WEB DESK

A meeting of Election commission today could not reach a decision on date for holding next parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka. Commission chairman Mahinda Deshapriya, however, said, the date will be announced this week.

The commission had last week announced that it would declare the new date today but it was decided to consult several other stakeholders before announcing the new date.

The commission decided to publish the gazette notification announcing preferential numbers of candidates tomorrow. It also requested Director General of health services (DGHS) to gazette guidelines given to the commission while its officials will meet President’s Secretary and Finance Secretary to discuss election budget.

The commission has predicted the budget to exceed from 6 billion to 9 billion rupees due to COVID issues. Sri Lankan government and the commission had been on collision course with the former pitching for early elections while commission expressed its inability to hold elections till COVID situation is under control.

Country’s Supreme Court rejected some petitions to delay elections following which the Commission is gearing up to hold elections. It may be mentioned that Sri Lankan parliament was dissolved on March 2nd and polling declared for April 25th but it was delayed due to COVID pandemic.