Election Commission postpones Shimla Municipal Corporation polls

Shimla: The elections to Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) to be held by end of this month have been postponed following complaints of large scale discrepancies in electoral rolls. The State election Commission on Tuesday took cognisance of complaints by political parties and candidates and ordered fresh revision of electoral rolls to ensure free and fair polls and directed that final electoral rolls be published by 23 June, implying that the elections are unlikely to be held before mid July. [caption id=“attachment_3400296” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representative image. Reuters[/caption] A spokesman of the commission said in Shimla on Tuesday that as per the directions of the State Election Commission, the Election Registration Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner, Shimla, prepared and notified the electoral rolls on 5 May, showing the number of total electors as 88,167 whereas the CEO of the state had informed that the total number of electors enrolled by them was 85,546 for the MC area. He said both the electoral rolls were prepared with reference to same qualifying date (1 January, 2017) and the difference was on the higher side while 2200 applications were still pending with the revising authorities. He said the special revision of the electoral rolls would be done from 15 to 23 June, verification of electors already enrolled in the final electoral rolls and receipt of claims and objections by the revising authority would be done from 15 to 24 May whereas work of preparations of list of voters with addition/deletion/correction would be undertaken from 25 to 29 May. He said the appeal by the aggrieved voters to the Election Registration Officer-cum-Deputy Commissioner Shimla could be done within three days from the passing of orders by the revising authority. The disposal of appeals would be sorted out within three days from the filing of appeals and the preparation of the supplementary lists-II and insertion of corrections in the finally published electoral rolls would be done on 23. The five-year term of SMC would expire on 3 June and the last elections were held on 27 May, 2012.