Gandhinagar

Gujarat Governor O P Kohli today issued an ordinance to bring uniformity in the law about the situations where local body elections are deferred.

C J Gothi, parliamentary secretary, told PTI that as per the Gujarat Panchayat Act, elections can be postponed only if there is a natural calamity, while the Municipalities Act, 1963 and the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (BPMC) Act provide for some more situations where an election can be postponed beyond the local body’s term, such as communal disturbances and riots.

“We have amended all the three acts and now we have uniform provisions for not holding the elections in all the three acts,” he said.

The new ordinance amended section 79 of BPMC, section 8(A) of Municipalities act and section 257 of Panchayat act, under which the state government has powers to delay the local body polls for unspecified time.

The state government also can take the decision to delay the polls if there is an apprehension that the voters will not be able to use the franchise freely and fairly.

The local body polls to 253 municipalities, 208 taluka panchayats, 26 district panchayats and six municipal corporations were expected to be held in the state in October.

However, the Supreme Court recently stayed the elections to municipalities and municipal corporations, following a plea by advocate Anirudh Sharma.

The plea stated that “the manner in which Gujarat government as well as the state Election Commission had decided to conduct elections of councillors to different Municipal Corporations, was unconstitutional and invalid”.

PTI