Panchkula, Ambala MCs to go to polls on December 27

Polling for seven municipal bodies in Haryana will be held on December 27 and the results will be declared on December 30.

The poll notification will be issued on December 4 and nomination papers can be filed from December 11 to 16. State election commissioner, Haryana, Dalip Singh, said the general elections for the seats of mayor and members of all wards of MCs of Ambala, Panchkula and Sonepat and president and members of municipal council, Rewari; municipal committee, Sampla (Rohtak), Dharuhera (Rewari) and Ukalana (Hisar) will be held on December 27.

Besides this, bypolls for ward number 7 of municipal committee, Indri (Karnal), ward number 13 of Bhuna (Fatehabad), ward number 12 of Rajaund (Kaithal), ward number 14 of municipal council, Fatehabad and ward number 29 of municipal council, Sirsa have also been notified.

The election commissioner said the model code of conduct in respect of these municipal bodies has come into force from December 3.

He said the returning officers would publish a notice for inviting nominations on December 4. The nomination papers will be presented and posted from December 11 to 16 between 11am to 3pm (except December 13).

Scrutiny of nomination papers will be done on December 17. The last date for withdrawal of candidature is December 18.

The symbols will be allotted to the contesting candidates on December 18 after 3pm. Polling will be held on December 27 from 8am to 5.30pm.

The election commissioner said the last one hour (from 4.30 to 5.30 pm) has been fixed for Covid-19 patients and those having Covid-19 symptoms to cast their vote.

As per him, the post of mayor in the Ambala MC has been reserved for a woman. Besides , the post of president of Sampla municipal committee has been reserved for a woman belonging to Scheduled Castes and the post of president in Rewari municipal council has also been reserved for any candidate belonging to Backward Classes.

He said the post of mayor in Panchkula and Sonepat MC will remain unreserved and so will be the posts of president in municipal committees of Dharuhera (Rewari) and Ukalana (Hisar).

He added that the seats of mayor in corporations and president in councils and committees will now be filled up through direct elections.

Earlier, these seats were being filled up from amongst the elected members of the municipality concerned. However, the seats of senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor of the corporations and vice-president of the councils and committees will be filled up as per previous practice that is through indirect election from amongst the elected members of the municipality concerned.

Congress to contest municipal polls on symbol

Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja on Thursday said her party will contest the upcoming municipal polls on the party symbol.

In a statement, Selja said decision to contest municipal polls on party symbol was taken after holding consultations with AICC incharge for Haryana, Vivek Bansal, and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda.