State election panel likely to finalise poll dates by July-end

The SEC said that the Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday allowed it to take a call depending on the upcoming monsoon situation in different parts of the state.

“The Supreme Court has allowed us to take a call regarding holding municipal corporation, zilla parishad, panchayat samiti and gram panchayat elections depending on the rain situation by the end of July,” SEC Secretary Kiran Kurundkar told .

Kurundkar added, “In today’s hearing before the SC, we put on record details regarding the elections. We told the SC that the pre-election process has been restarted and we will need till July-end to complete it. We also told the court that we needed time to update voters’ list and declare quota for SC and ST seats.”

“Though we have completed the process of finalising boundaries of wards of municipal corporations, we need to complete the process for other local self-government bodies.”

Kurundkar said during the last hearing, the SC had directed the SEC to announce elections in two weeks. “However, at today’s hearing, the SC agreed with our submissions and allowed us till July to decide about holding the election depending on the monsoon situation,” he added.

Officials at SEC said they will decide the course of action once they receive the copy of the SC order.

Shiv Sena Minister Anil Parab said that the poll dates will be decided by the poll panel. “We are ready to face elections at any time,” he added.

The state has to hold elections to several local bodies, including 14 municipal corporations, 25 zilla parishads, 284 panchayat samitis, 2,000 gram panchayats as well as 220 nagar panchayats and nagar parishads.

Municipal corporation elections in the state were supposed to be held in February but that didn’t happen over the OBC quota issue. The SC had rejected the 27 per cent OBC reservation in civic bodies.

Last year, the SC stayed had OBC quota until the state set up a dedicated commission, which had provided the court empirical data on the political backwardness of OBCs in local bodies. The SC found the data inadequate and rejected the same. It had then asked the state to hold the polls without the OBC quota.