The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Local body elections to be held on August 30

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Friday, Aug 03, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Local body elections to be held on August 30

Staff Reporter

Polls to be held to 163 of 214 CMCs, TMCs and TPs

M.R. Hegde

BANGALORE: The State Election Commission on Thursday announced that the elections would be held to the 163 of 214 urban local bodies (corporations, city municipal corporations, town municipal corporations, and town panchayats) on August 30.

The election process will be completed on September 5. The counting of votes in all taluk headquarters will be on September 2.

Elections could not be held in Madikeri and Hosanagara city municipal councils for “technical” reasons.

In the case of eight mahanagara palikes of Bangalore, Belgaum, Gulbarga, Bellary, Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Mangalore and Davanagere, elections will be held after receiving the reservation list.

State Election Commissioner M.R. Hegde told presspersons that the code of conduct had already come into effect.

However, he said that it had been relaxed in rural areas as some of them needed relief operations due to one or the other natural calamities such as drought or floods.

He said that 19 documents such as ration cards, PAN cards and caste certificates could be used as identity cards. Elections in 43 local bodies could not be held as the Government had not provided the reservation list. But he clarified that the Commission was ready to conduct elections to those local bodies if the reservation lists were submitted in a day or two.

Mr. Hegde said the electronic voting machines could not be used in the elections as the Karnataka Municipalities Act had not been amended for the purpose.

No limit on expenditure had been fixed for the same reason. Instead, ballot papers in white colour would be used.

The deputy commissioners of the districts concerned would issue election notification on August 8.

Last date for filing nominations: August 16 and scrutiny will take place the next day. Last date for withdrawal of nominations was August 20.

He said that 5,099 presiding officers for as many booths and 43,56,167 polling staff would participate in the election work.

This time, 22,00,690 men and 21,55,477 women would exercise their franchise. There were 1,856 sensitive and 2,050 hyper sensitive booths.

The term of 209 local bodies (corporations eight, CMCs 44, TMCs 93 and town panchayats 64) had expired. Although the Commission announced the elections on April 10, the Karnataka High Court stayed it following writ petitions on the issue of reservations.

The Government claimed that ward reservation lists had been provided to the Commission, but it got the list only for 165 local bodies. It had not issued notifications for the other local bodies.

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