JAIPUR: The Rajasthan High court on Wednesday deferred elections for the six newly formed municipal corporations in the state for six weeks on grounds of coronavirus outbreak.
A Jaipur bench of the high court deferred the polls saying that the corona outbreak has been declared a pandemic by the Central government and the state resources should be put to contain it.
A division bench of justices Sangeet Lodha and Manoj Kumar Vyas deferred on the elections on a plea by the state government.
The elections for councillors in 560 wards of six new municipal corporations of Jaipur Heritage, Jaipur, Jodhpur North, Jodhpur South, Kota North and Kota South were scheduled to be held on April 5.
Notification for the ward councillor election was scheduled to be issued on March 19.
There are more than 35 lakh voters in the newly formed six municipal corporations and over 15,000 personnel were to be deputed in the election duty.
After requests from MLAs and district collectors to postpone the civic polls, the Local Self-Government Department had written to state Election Commission for the same.
The commission in its reply had conveyed that the elections are being held on the directions of the high court and it cannot be violated.
An official had said that on Monday that after a meeting between the officials of the Local Self-Government Department and the Legal Department, chaired by UDH and Local Self-Government Minister Shanti Dhariwal, it was decided to file an application in the court to get the elections deferred.