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Legal tangle stalls civic body polls in Punjab
The Punjab government had asked election commission to hold polls in November last year but due to several court cases challenging the delimitation, the process has been delayed
Punjab civic body polls for five municipal corporations – Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Phagwara along with 42 smaller civic entities are stuck in a legal tangle with multiple cases filed in the courts challenging the delimitation of wards.
The elections have been stalled for more than one year now and in the absence of elected bodies, the government has appointed senior officers as administrators to look after the day-to-day affairs. With the general house dissolved, this arrangement has come under criticism from the opposition parties who asked how can a government-appointed officer take a call on the utilisation of funds when, under the Municipal Corporation Act 1976, it is a mandate of the elected representatives.
Raj Kanwal Singh from Amritsar, who remained the leader of opposition in the Municipal Corporation, said the present arrangement of a government-appointed official at the helm was unconstitutional.
“The (Amritsar) MC has an annual budget of ₹800 crore. The multi-crore budget utilisation cannot be left at the discretion of one person when there is a constitutional system of running the affairs by an elected house of councillors,” he said.
The annual budget of Ludhiana MC is at least ₹1,500 crore, and that of Jalandhar MC is ₹550 crore.
Seeing no end to the legal tangle, the state government has already moved the Supreme Court on January 15 to defend the delimitation of wards by the local bodies department.
“There are several petitions filed in court challenging the ward bandhi (delimitation). We have to defend our decision, so we have gone with an appeal in the apex court,” said the director local bodies Uma Shankar. The next date of hearing is January 30.
Shankar said that in November, last year, the department had written to the state election commission to start the poll process. “We are hoping for an immediate remedy from the court so that the polls can be held soon,” he said.
Prabodh Chander Bali, an advocate from Amritsar who has filed public interest litigation in the high court, seeking the conduct of the municipal polls said, the Punjab government had dishonoured the statuary and constitutional mandate. “The house of the municipal corporations has already expired, and my PIL was to mandate the government to conduct elections,” he said.
The upcoming polls are seen as a test of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government, which in two months’ time will complete two years at the helm of the state. AAP came to power in March 2022 with a thumping majority by winning 92 seats out of 117.
Other political parties are eying the polls as an opportunity to regain their lost ground. In the previous civic body elections, Congress had won in all four municipal corporations - Amritsar, Patiala, Jalandhar and Ludhiana.
The term of the elected general house in four Municipal Corporations —Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Patiala— ended in January 2023, and Phagwara is due for polls since 2020. Apart from this 42 municipal councils and notified area committees are also awaiting for polls since long time. There are seven municipal councils in the smaller towns — Dera Baba Nanak, Sardoolgarh, Sanaur, Tarn Taran, Nadala, Sangrur and Rampura Phul where the terms of the elected bodies ended between March 3 to 13, 2020, and are awaiting polls. Also, the terms of 35 other municipal councils and notified area committees which ended between December 31, 2022, and February 14, 2023, are scheduled to go to polls.
According to the sources in the local bodies department, as per the Municipal Act 1976, the polls are to be conducted within six months after the end of the tenure.
Congress’ Jagdish Raja, former Jalandhar mayor said the local bodies department had given an undertaking in Punjab and Haryana high court to hold polls in November last year but it seems the government is not in the mood to conduct polls.
“In my opinion, the civic body polls will be conducted after the parliament polls,” Raja said.
In the hearing on January 15 in the high court, the state government informed the court that an appeal is pending in the Supreme Court and the government is scheduled to file a reply on January 30 in the apex court.
