Voters’ list for Amritsar civic body poll likely to be ready by tomorrow

Tribune News Service

Charanjit Singh Teja

Amritsar, November 20

With the final publication of voters’ list on November 22, the process of revising the electoral rolls for the upcoming Municipal Corporation (MC) election is set to be completed. The State Election Commission (EC) had extended the date for revising the electoral rolls to November 21. After the delimitation of wards, new electoral rolls were to be prepared and the process was underway.

Earlier, the State Election Commission had asked the administration to publish the final electoral rolls on November 10. It was brought to the notice of the EC that due to modification of wards after delimitation, the number of claims and objections had gone up considerably. According to the information available, the final lists have been prepared by the administration.

Now the government may announce the date for the Municipal Corporation elections in December and conduct the elections in January. The State Election Commission has completed its preparations for conducting elections in Amritsar and other four municipal corporations in the state. The MC elections have been delayed by nearly a year as the previous MC House was dissolved in January 2023.

The delimitation of MC wards was the main reason behind the delay in holding elections. However, work on delimitation was completed by the Municipal Corporation of Amritsar in October but the process was incomplete in other cities. Earlier, the Department of Local Bodies had issued a notification and sent it to the Election Commission saying that elections should be held on November 15. But the revision of voters’ lists was pending, so the elections were postponed again. After hearing objections on the voters’ list, the process has now been almost completed. The voters’ list for the elections is to be finalised by November 21.

“The government is planning to conduct elections in the first fortnight of January along with other municipalities in the state,” said Sukhbir Singh, former councillor.