The State Election Commissioner, Punjab, Jagpal Singh Sandhu, today announced the schedule for general and bye elections of eight Municipal Corporations and 109 Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats .
With the announcement of the schedule, the 'Model Code of Conduct' has come into force with immediate effect within the municipal areas of the municipalities where elections will be held. The Code of Conduct would be in force till the completion of the electoral process.
Elaborating further, Mr.Jagpal Singh Sandhu said that the process for filing nominations would commence on January 30 and February 3 would be the last date. The nominations would be scrutinized on February 4, 2021 while the date of withdrawal of nominations is February 5, 2021 which would also be the date of allotting the election symbols to the candidates.
Election Campaigning will end on February 12th at 5.00 PM. The voting would be held on February 14, 2021 from 08.00 Am to 4.00 PM. Counting of votes would be done on February 17, 2021.
145 Returning Officers and 145 Assistant Returning Officers have been appointed for conducting the elections. 30 IAS/PCS officers would be appointed as Election Observers and six IPS officers will be appointed as Police observers to ensure the peaceful, free and fair conduct of elections.
He said that 400 members would be elected for eight Municipal Corporations and 1902 members would be elected for 109 Municipal councils/ Nagar Panchayats in the State.
50% reservation has been given for women in municipal elections as per Punjab Government instructions. Voter list prepared by the E.R.O. Phagwara has many deficiencies and which has to be recast again. Therefore, the election of Phagwara Municipal Corporation will be held later on after preparing the voter list.
Sandhu has also said that the voter lists of Municipal Corporations, Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats had been updated with qualifying date of 01-01-2020. He appealed to the voters to participate the voting process with full zeal and honesty. There are 20,49,777 Male, 18,65,354 Female and 149 Transgender voters totaling 39,15,280 registered voters in the State of Punjab for these elections.
Commission has established 4102 polling booths and around 18000 personnel will be put on election duty. This election will be held by EVMs. 7000 EVMs have been arranged for this purpose.
The State Election Commission further said that the expenditure limit for a candidate of Municipal Corporation has been fixed as Rs.3 lakh, for candidate of Municipal Council Class -I, Rs.2.70 lakh, Class-II- Rs.1.70 lakh, Class -III- Rs.1.45 lakh and candidates for Nagar Panchayats Rs.1.05 lakh.
He further said that keeping in view the COVID-19, SOP containing detailed guidelines were to be adopted during the election process was issued on December 10, 2020. For taking preventive measures for COVID-19, Rs.1.65 crore have been allocated to provide masks, sanitizers, temperature guns and gloves to be used by the staff deployed for election duty.
General elections of Municipal Corporations to be held in Abohar, Bathinda Batala, Kapurthala, S.A.S. Nagar, Hoshiarpur, Pathankot, Moga and bye election in the ward no 37 (backward classes) of municipal corporation Amritsar would also be held.