Punjab civic body polls to be held by December-end

The election to Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Patiala and Phagwara municipal corporations and 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, on Thursday 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 civic body elections 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.

As per the state election 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 the state to declare the poll schedule within 15 days, had directed the state to notify municipal elections in the state within two weeks and complete the entire process within eight weeks of the notification.