E-Paper
Panchayat polls set for delay, decision only after 15 days
PATNA It’s official now
PATNA
It’s official now. The upcoming panchayat polls in the state will be delayed as the State Election Commission (SEC) on Wednesday decided to take a decision on holding the elections for rural local bodies only after reviewing the situation of Covid-19 cases after 15 days in the wake of surge in infections owing to second wave of the Coronavirus.
In a press statement, the SEC said there were plans to send the proposal for notification of panchayat polls to the state government by end of April, but the situation has changed owing to the recent spike in Corona cases. It said the entire administration in districts was had been mobilised to tackle the situation and many in the state poll panel and other departments had contracted the virus.
Officials said the training programme for officials drafted for election duty has been also suspended.
The current five-year term of elected representatives for 2.54 lakh posts in three-tier rural local bodies ends on June 15. With panchayat polls set to be delayed, chances are that these bodies would be run it through administrators after June 15 till the time elections are held, sources said.
The panchayat raj department has already started working on a proposal to appoint administrators to run these bodies by notifying designated officers so that development works carried through the rural local bodies continues smoothly.
SEC officials, however, said the election date would be fixed once the situation normalises and that the preparations for holding the polls were already in place.
Recently, the SEC and Election Commission of India (ECI) resolved the dispute over the procurement of EVMs by deciding to hold panchayat polls through simple EVMs ( which are used in assembly/parliamentary polls), instead of multi-post EVMs.
