The State Election Commissioner, Punjab, Jagpal SinghSandhu, today announced the schedule for general and bye elections of eightMunicipal Corporations and 109 MunicipalCouncils and Nagar Panchayats .
With the announcement of the schedule, the 'Model Code of Conduct' has come into force with immediate effect within themunicipal areas of the municipalities where elections will be held. The Code of Conduct would be in force tillthe completion of the electoral process.
Elaboratingfurther, Mr.Jagpal Singh Sandhu said that the process for filing nominationswould commence on January 30 and February 3 would be the last date. Thenominations would be scrutinized on February 4, 2021 while the date ofwithdrawal of nominations is February 5,2021 which would also be the date of allotting the election symbols to thecandidates.
Election Campaigning will end on February 12th at 5.00PM. The voting would be held on February 14, 2021 from 08.00 Am to 4.00 PM. Counting of votes would be done on February17, 2021.
145 Returning Officers and 145 Assistant Returning Officers have beenappointed for conducting the elections. 30 IAS/PCS officers would beappointed as Election Observers and six IPS officers will be appointed as Policeobservers to ensure the peaceful, free and fair conduct of elections.
He said that 400 members would be elected for eight MunicipalCorporations and 1902 members would beelected for 109 Municipal councils/ Nagar Panchayats in theState.
50% reservation has been given for women in municipalelections as per Punjab Government instructions. Voter list prepared by theE.R.O. Phagwara has many deficiencies and which has to be recast again.Therefore, the election of Phagwara Municipal Corporation will be held later onafter preparing the voter list.
Sandhu has also said that the voter lists of MunicipalCorporations, Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats had been updated withqualifying date of 01-01-2020. Heappealed to the voters to participate the voting process with full zeal andhonesty. There are 20,49,777 Male, 18,65,354 Female and 149 Transgender voters totaling39,15,280 registered voters in the Stateof 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 byEVMs. 7000 EVMs have been arranged for this purpose.
The State Election Commission further said that theexpenditure limit for a candidate of Municipal Corporation has been fixed asRs.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 PanchayatsRs.1.05 lakh.
He further said that keeping in view the COVID-19, SOPcontaining detailed guidelines were to be adopted during the election process was issued on December10, 2020. For taking preventive measuresfor COVID-19, Rs.1.65 crore have been allocated to provide masks, sanitizers, temperature guns andgloves to be used by the staff deployed for election duty.
General elections of Municipal Corporations to be held inAbohar, Bathinda Batala, Kapurthala, S.A.S. Nagar, Hoshiarpur, Pathankot, Moga and bye electionin the ward no 37 (backward classes) of municipal corporation Amritsar wouldalso be held.