In view of the forthcoming elections of Urban local Bodies, an all party meeting was convened at State Election Commission on Friday. Addressing the meeting, the State Election Commissioner Subardhan said that there is a need to make democracy more lively and strong and for it mechanism of independent, impartial and transparent elections is there.
He added that in times to come, India would present a model before all democratic nations and lead the world.
Subardhan said that it is the duty of Election Commission to ensure free and fair elections. Apart from carrying out the above mentioned responsibilities, the State Election Commission is also embarking on to make people aware about their rights, he said.
In the meeting, the representatives of the parties were unanimous that the prevailing maximum limit of poll expense in the election of urban local bodies implemented in the year 2013 should be raised. At present, there is an expense limit of Rs 8 lakh for Mayor, Rs 1 lakh for Deputy Nagar Pramukh and ward councilors. Similarly a limit of Rs 3 lakhs for Municipal council President and Rs 30000 for member Municipal councils is fixed. For President Nagar Panchayat and Member Nagar Panchayat, a maximum limit of Rs 1 lakh and Rs 15000 is fixed. While discussing the model code of conduct, Subardhan said that the state election commission would appoint expenditure observers for the first time for these elections. Similarly, the number of general observers would also be increased this time.
There would be a complete ban on use of Government machinery and any attempt to influence voters in these elections, the Chief Election Commissioner assured the members of the political parties. In the meeting it was informed that the commission can impose a ban on those political parties that have not submitted the audit report and ‘No pendency certificate’ from the income tax department with the commission.
The commissioner also asked the political parties to provide the names and addresses of their office bearers.
The parties were informed that the electoral rolls are available and can be downloaded from the official website of the election commission.
The meeting was attended by the Secretary State Election commission, Roshan lal, Finance controller Tripti Srivastava, Assistant Commissioner Nidhi Rawat, Advisor election commission Ajit Singh, Representative of Indian National Congress Jot Singh, BJP’s Puneet Mittal, Uttarakhand Kranti Dal’s Jaideep Bhatt, Surendra Singh Sajwan of Communist Party Of India (CPI), BSP’s Ramesh Kumar, Samajwadi Party’s (SP) Rupendra Tomar and others.