ROURKELA: With panchayat elections over, political parties and the district administration are now readying for the urban polls in Sundargarh, Rajgangpur and Birmitrapur municipalities next month. Elections to the three Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) will take place on March 24. However, Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) will not go to polls due to court litigation.
Official sources informed that the administration has already published final lists of voters and booths and notifications for reservation status of wards for the three ULBs in the district. Sundargarh municipality has 19 wards with the post of chairperson reserved for a woman. For Rajganpgur and Birmitrapur municipalities, the posts of chairpersons are unreserved. Rajgangpgur and Birmitrapur ULBs have 20 and 11 wards respectively.
Senior BJP leader of Rajgangpur Kuldeep Singh (55) claimed that voters of Rajgangpur would get the option to directly elect a chairperson of their choice after 30 years. Though the post was unreserved in 2008, then councillors were electing the chairperson. Singh, incidentally, is aspiring to contest as Rajgangpur chairman.
It remains to be seen if the ruling BJD will repeat its 2013 victory winning all the three ULBs. Birmitrapur executive officer Sambit Das said they are ready with all preparations for the urban poll on March 24.
“With the State Election Commission (SEC) announcing to hold direct elections for the posts of the chairpersons and two out of three posts kept unreserved after a long gap, many general category leaders from different political parties are upbeat,” he said. Birmitrapur and Sundargarh assembly constituencies have BJP legislators, while Rajgangpur assembly segment has Congress MLA.