Hyderabad: Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Monday ruled out putting off the local body poll and said the elections would be held in October as scheduled. A high-level meeting with the State Election Commission officials will be held to discuss the issue on Tuesday.
Mr Chandy said in Kochi that the government would extend all help to the commission to hold the elections on time. “I have directed all ministers to attend the meet,” he said.
There has been uncertainty over the elections ever since the High Court had set aside last week the ward delimitation in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode corporations and the proposal to form Kazhakoottam municipality in Thiruvananthapuram.
State Election Commissioner K. Sasidharan Nair had written to Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson and met Governor P. Sathasivam expressing the commission’s inability to conduct the elections as per schedule.
If the government wants to go ahead with the current schedule, it will have to drop the new delimitation proposals and retain the existing wards which came into being on November 1, 2010. He had said earlier that under the current circumstances, elections can be held only during December.
But Mr Chandy told DC, “All issues would be discussed at tomorrow’s meet and hopefully there would be a solution.”
The government wanted to see the newly elected committees of local self-government bodies to assume office on November 1.
As per the provisions of the Panchayati Raj and Municipalities Acts, the new local bodies should take charge on October 1.
But the government changed the election schedule to November 1 which is also the state formation day.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader V. S. Achuthanandan said in a statement here that under no circumstances should the local body elections be postponed.
He said it would be against the Constitution and that the people of Kerala would not allow it.
CPI leader Kanam Rajendran said that the High Court verdict was a setback to the Chandy government and asked it to conduct the elections as per schedule.
CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said the court’s verdict annulling the government’s decision to form new village panchayats ahead of the elections showed its lapses.
