Residents wait for final ward map before Patiala MC elections

Advertisement

Patiala, October 12

Residents of the city are waiting for the Local Government Department Punjab’s decisions regarding objections filed against the recently released ward map of MC Patiala after the announcement of holding Municipal Corporation elections within the first fortnight of November.

The term of the Municipal Corporation came to an end in January this year. The Local Government (LG) department, after a long delimitation exercise, released the new ward map of the city on August 30, which was followed by the submission of over 204 objections.

The residents had raised numerous objections, including that the city’s areas were mentioned differently in the notification and the map. They claimed that some wards reserved for the SC category were notified as open wards, despite the fact that those wards had more population from the SC community. They said numerous similar errors were found in the ward map. “We raised objections, but the department has not yet released a new ward map, nor called us for clarifications or to understand the mistakes. If the elections are supposed to be held in early November, the people are left with only little time to prepare to contest and to cast their votes”, a former municipal councillor said.

Residents say they are unaware of which ward their locality falls in. “The department should release the ward map at the earliest,” they said.

When contacted, Corporation Commissioner Aaditya Uppal said the corporation had sent the objections filed by residents to the department. “All subsequent decisions are to be taken by the department”, he said.

Only little time left to prepare for poll

“We raised objections, but the department has not yet released a new ward map, nor called us for clarifications or to understand the mistakes. If the elections are supposed to be held in early November, the people are left with only little time to prepare to contest and to cast their votes”, a former municipal councillor said.