Civic body elections by December-end

The elections to Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Phagwara municipal corporations, 42 municipal councils and nagar panchayats will be held by the end of December.

A notification in this regard was issued by Additional Chief Secretary, Local Government, Tejvir Singh this evening.

Apart from the above-mentioned civic bodies, byelections to seven wards of Bathinda, Batala (Gurdaspur), Hoshiarpur and Fazilka (Abohar) municipal corporations will also be held by December-end.

Official’s privy to the development said the file pertaining to the conduct of these polls was today cleared by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

The Punjab State Election Commission has already announced the schedule for the revision of electoral rolls. The elections to Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Phagwara municipal corporations and several municipal councils have been delayed by two-three years.

According to the commission, filing of claims and objections is allowed till November 25. After disposing of the claims and objections by December 3, the final publication of the electoral rolls will be completed on December 7.

Recently, the Supreme Court, while hearing a Punjab Government petition challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court order asking it to declare the poll schedule within 15 days, had ordered notification of municipal elections within two weeks and completion of the entire process within eight weeks thereafter.