Law amended six times in 24 yrs to delay municipal elections

Sushil Manav

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 17

The Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994, provided that the first elections to the corporation may be held within six months of it being implemented.

However, in the past 24 years, the Act had been amended six times by successive governments, with every amendment increasing the period from the last, ostensibly to delay the elections for the newly formed municipal corporations.

The latest of the above six amendments came on the last day of the recently concluded monsoon session when the Assembly amended the Act to introduce direct elections for the post of Mayor and also increased the period for holding of the first elections for a municipal corporation from three years and three months to four years.

The amendment has given the state government the option to hold elections for the Sonepat Municipal Corporation after the next year’s Parliamentary poll till July 2019, which it was under obligation to hold by October 2018.

“This is against the spirit of the Act that provided for early elections to the municipal bodies so that people could elect their representatives. But the successive government have been amending the Act as per their suitability,” alleged Advocate Hemant Kumar, an activist.

Sources said when the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act, 1994, was notified, only Faridabad Municipal Corporation was in existence and its elections were held in time.

In June 2008, the state government upgraded Gurgaon (now Gurugram) Municipal Council to the status of Corporation, but it was unable to hold elections within six months and the Act was amended on October 10, 2008, to replace the words “six months” with “one year”.

On September 17, 2009, the Act was amended again to provide for holding of the first elections within two years instead of one year, and again on September 1, 2010, to substitute the word “two years” with “two years and six months” and yet again on April 18, 2011, to provide for the first elections to be held after three years.

When the elections to Gurugram Municipal Corporation could not be held even in three years, another amendment, the fifth one, was brought on February 23, 2013, substituting “three years” with “three years and three months”, paving the way for holding of elections in June 2013.