Municipal elections in Arunachal on May 29

Itanagar, April 21: The State Election Commission (SEC) has announced May 29 as the date for the municipality elections in Itanagar and Pasighat while the date for panchayat polls could not be finalized due to technical reasons.

There are presently 30 wards under Itanagar Municipal Council (IMC) with 64,799 elector, while Pasighat Municipal Council with 12 wards has a total of 9, 646 elector.

State Election Commissioner Hage Kojeen said the notification for the election would be issued on May 1, while the last date for filing of nominations has been fixed on May 8. Scrutiny of papers would be done on May 10 and the last date for the withdrawal of candidature is May 14.

Counting of votes would be held on May 31 and the entire election process would be completed by June 7, Kojeen said in a statement, adding the model code of conduct would come into force from the date of announcement.

He appealed to all political parties, party workers, candidates and their agents to abide by the model code of conduct specified by the State Election Commission, which would be made available on the official website www.secap.nic.in.

The commission has also appointed two observers for Itanagar municipality and one observer for Pasighat municipality respectively.

While referring to matter of Panchayat elections, the State election commissioner stated that the delay in Panchayat elections was due to the recent Arunachal Pradesh Panchayat Raj Amendment 2018, during the 15 session of the 6th Legislative Assembly, whereby the existing three-tier Panchayat Raj system was replaced by the two- tier system in the State.

"The commission had earlier moved the proposal for holding the elections on January 31 this year as per schedule and requested the State government to convey its consensus latest by the first week of March. But on getting no reply, reminders were sent to the Chief Minister's office on February 19 and April 11 as the scheduled notification date was on April 13, which already expired," he stated in a statement.

Kojeen further said that the State government, in its response, had mentioned that consequential amendments were required to be incorporated in the various subordinate legislations like Arunachal Pradesh Panchayat Raj Preparation of Electoral Roll Rule 2002, Arunachal Pradesh Panchayati Raj Conduct of Election, 2001 and Arunachal Pradesh Panchayati Raj Delimitation Constituencies and Reservation of Women Rule 2002 etc. 

He added that the State government had decided to hold the elections only after completing all the legal and required process.

Meanwhile, the commission urged the State government to expedite all the process to ensure holding of panchayat elections on time.