Maharashtra poll body rejects MVA demand to put off civic polls

NASHIK: Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) has ruled out the possibility of postponement of the upcoming local body polls. "SEC will be issuing a notification to conduct the polls in three phases soon. We are in the final stages of working out the modalities to conduct the polls in a transparent manner," a senior SEC functionary told TOI.

MVA led by NCP (SP) supremo Sharad Pawar, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray and Congress's Balasaheb Thorat held a protest rally in Mumbai on Saturday, alleging largescale discrepancies in voter lists. The coalition demanded the local body polls be postponed until the list was rectified by ridding it of duplication of names and bogus voters. "It will not be possible for SEC to defer the conduct of polls as there is a clear instruction from Supreme Court to conduct the polls by January 31.

Conducting the body polls is a mammoth task. Unless we start conducting the polls in phases, it would be difficult to meet the deadline," said a senior SEC functionary, adding SEC was at an advanced stage of planning the polls.

SEC will conduct the polls in 685 local bodies - 29 municipal corporations, 32 zilla parishads and 42 nagar panchayats and 336 panchayat samitis.

According to SEC sources, such voters whose names appear more than once in the list had been marked in asterisks.

SEC sources said EC had "not responded positively" to its request for addition and deletion to July 1 voters list up to Oct 15. "The commission will not speculate whether polls for urban bodies like municipal corporations will be held first followed by local bodies in rural parts. We will spell out all details in the notification," said SEC sources.