Puducherry EC withdraws poll schedule

ducherry December 13, 2012 22:35 IST Within hours of the Madras High Court issuing a directive to Puducherry administration on notifying local body polls with updated data, the State Election Commission here withdrew its notification issued on December 3 to hold civic polls in three phases from January.

State Election Commissioner R Uddipta Ray said as per the court directions the election schedule issued by the Commission to hold polls for all the municipalities, commune and village panchayats in three phases has been withdrawn.

He said the model code of conduct, which was in force since December 3, has also been withdrawn.

As per the earlier announcement, civic polls were to be held on January 4, 8 and 10.

The Madras High Court directed the Puducherry government to immediately obtain the 2011 census data, carry out delimitation and reservation process in its local body wards.

The First Bench, comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam, said, "..If the increase in population is not considered, it would result in grave prejudice and it would virtually defeat the very purpose of conducting elections for the civic bodies" .

To a submission that the latest electoral roll does not have any adherence to delimitation boundaries, the bench said, "If that be so, any election conducted based on the 1991 census or earlier notifications, would at best be an election on paper and would not reflect true opinion of the electorate."

The State Election Commissioner said the Commission would notify the election process afresh as soon as the notification was received from government on delimitation and reservation for the BCs.

He said the court had also stated that the election process should be completed within three months from the date of receipt of the notification on delimitation and reservation for BCs.

The Commission`s earlier order on reservation issued on September 27 would not also be acted upon, he added.

A PIL had sought to set aside the September 27 notification of Puducherry EC publishing a list of numbers, names and reserved seats allotted to Municipalities and Commune Panchayats as a run up to local body polls.

Puducherry had the first civic polls in 2006 when the new legislation was adopted in 1973 after several years.

The five year term of office of all the five municipalities, ten commune and 98 village panchayats constituted in the wake of the elections in 2006 came to an end in July last year.