The State Election Commissioner Subardhan has clarified that the three tier Panchayat elections and the first meeting of the newly elected Panchayats must be held before March 29, 2014.
While the State administration is considering whether to comply with the High Court order of facilitating delimitation on the basis of 2011 census figures in stead of 2001 census figures or to challenge the order in the double bench of the high court, the SEC has clarified that whichever option the Government chooses, the Panchayat elections cannot be deferred beyond March 29.
It will be recalled that the State Government had conducted delimitation for Panchayat polls on the basis of 2001 census data following which a petition was filed in the High Court challenging this step on the grounds that the 2011 census data had also been published and should have been used by the Government for delimitation.
The State Government stated that the delimitation process had already been started on the basis of 2001 census data when the 2011 census data was published so the process was completed without any changes. The HC recently ordered that the delimitation should be conducted based on 2011 census data. The State Government is awaiting a copy of the judgement before deciding its course of action.
However, the SEC has stressed that even if the delimitation is conducted afresh based on the 2011 census data, it would take about one and a half months for it to be completed after which the Panchayat polls could be conducted. The polls and first meeting of the elected Panchayats have to be held before March 29, 2014 and cannot be deferred beyond this deadline by even one day, he stressed.
The tenure of the Panchayats ended on September 30 this year and as per the constitution, elections and the first meeting of the newly elected Panchayats have to be held within six months of the end of the tenure of the previous Panchayats.