BHUBANESWAR: Hours after the Election Commission of India (ECI) announced dates for Assembly elections in five states on Saturday, the State Government issued gazette notifications calling upon the three tier panchayatiraj institutions to elect people’s representatives to the posts of ward members, sarpanchs, panchayat samiti and zilla parishad members.
With the issue of the notifications, panchayat polls in the State will now be announced any day after the all party meeting called by the State Election Commission (SEC) on January 10.
Earlier in the day, State Election Commissioner (SEC) AP Padhi discussed the issue with Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra, Special Relief Commissioner PK Jena and Additional Chief Secretary in the Health and Family Welfare department RK Sharma.
The SEC announced after the meeting that it will take a decision on panchayat election on the basis of inputs provided by the government on the Covid-19 situation in the State.
Sources, however, said that now there is no possibility of postponement of the polls. The election will be held with Covid-19 restrictions. There will be no rally, public meetings or physical campaigning. It is likely that the SEC will allow online campaigning.
Advisory issued by the ECI for political parties and governments of five states going to polls in February and March is likely to be followed by the SEC.
The SEC told mediapersons that information regarding the prevailing Covid situation in the State was discussed. The meeting discussed steps to be taken for controlling crowd during filing of nomination papers, campaigning and counting of votes.
The State government made a powerpoint presentation before the SEC on steps taken to check spread of pandemic.
Besides, the SEC advised the government to complete second dose vaccination of all frontline employees engaged in election work.
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Discussion was also held on maintenance of law and order to ensure fair and peaceful panchayat polls.
The security of voters, election officials and representatives of political parties were also discussed, he said and added that a decision will be taken on elections dates based on the inputs submitted by the government.
Among the political parties only the Congress is in favour of postponement of the election till the pandemic subsides.
Life is more precious than election, leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Narasingha Mishra said and wanted Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to defer the poll.
BJP, however, wants elections to be held with strict compliance of Covid guidelines. The BJD is in favour of panchayat elections in time.