Municipal election dates likely within a month

NAINITAL: The Uttarakhand government on Thursday submitted to the high court (HC) that the state election commission will be apprised about the status of reservation and delimitation of urban local bodies by May 27 and elections can commence within 35 to 40 days of that. The submission which has paved the way for elections to be held within a period of one to one and a half months, was made during a hearing on the matter in a single bench of the HC presided by Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia.After the state government’s submission, the court disposed off the petition that had been filed last monthwhich had alleged inordinate delay on part of the state government to hold municipal elections in the state.
Advocate general SN Babulakar who represented the state government in the matter, told TOI, “The state government has already held a meeting with the state election commission on May 23. Now, a letter has been submitted to the HC regarding submission of current status of delimitation and reservation to the commission by May 27.”
Sanjay Bhatt, counsel for the election commission said that the commission will “wait for the status report from the state government and then proceed accordingly.”
The process of holding elections in the 92 urban local bodies (ULBs) in the state has seen several twists and turns in the past few weeks. On April 3, state election chief Subardhan, in a press conference, had accused the state government of deliberately delaying the election process. He alleged that the terms of ULBs in the state were ending on May 3 and it would be impossible to hold elections by then. On April 4, the high court asked the state government to explain the reasons for the delay. On April 11, the state government submitted its schedule related to the municipal elections to the high court. In its affidavit, the government said that the notification related to the elections will be published till May 12 starting from April 9 and the elections will be held after that. On April 23, the government issued the final notification for delimitation. But in a big jolt to the government on May 14, a single bench of the high court cancelled the government’s notification issued on April 5 saying that the governor’s signatures was not there in the delimitation notification. The state government on May 17 filed a special appeal in a double bench of the HC against the quashing of the delimitation notification and on May 22, in a big relief to it, the HC set aside the earlier order of its single bench paving the way for the elections to be held.