Code of conduct for civic polls from next week

By Our Staff Reporter
Bhopal, Nov 3: 
Code of conduct for civic body elections would be effective from next week in the state. Reservation for Mayor and Presidents would be decided by November 9 and final publication of voters' list would be on November 11. After that the election code of conduct would become effective any time.
State Election Commission Chairman AV Singh told media today that election code of conduct would come into force from next week. At present there are some procedural problems due to which it cannot be made effective at present. As reservation for Mayor and Presidents has not been done so far enforcement of the code of conduct has to wait. He said that civic body elections would be completed by December 20. He said that after the elections held in the year 2004 the first meeting of most of the councils were held between December 21 and 24, 2004. Hence, completing of election procedure before December 21 is mandatory. Commission Secretary Anupam Rajan and other officers were present at the press conference.

No EVM, cast vote by stamping
Singh informed that Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) would not be used this time also in civic body elections. He said that there are no EVMs with the Commission. Letter has been sent to the Election Commission of India (ECI) in this regard but the reply is still awaited. If the ECI makes available EVMs the elections would be held with them, he said.

Elections to 268 civic bodies
Singh said that the state has a total 358 civic bodies. Out of them elections would be held for 268 civic bodies. Among the remaining civic bodies in 53, cases pertaining to Fifth Schedule are pending. In three civic bodies law procedure is pending and the remaining civic bodies time is not over. He said that the elections would be held in two stages.

Political parties registered in other states permitted
AV Singh said that political parties registered in other states would be allotted additional election symbols on their demand. The election symbols allotted to regional parties have been removed from the list of free symbols. Instead, other symbols have been added to the list. If more than one party demand same symbol, that symbol would be freeze and other symbol would be allotted

Change in voting time
The State Election Commission has changed voting time for civic bodies and Panchayats. For the urban bodies voting would start at 8 AM (instead of 7 AM) and end at 5 PM. For gram Panchayats the voting time would be from 8 AM to 3 PM.

More than 4 lakh applications
Singh said that so far 4,29,516 applications from the state for adding names to the voters' list has been received. The number of applications received from Bhopal is less than six thousand. He said that investigations are going on at places from where large number of applications has been received. Only after the investigation report new names would be added to the list, he said. There are around one crore voters in civic body elections and about 3 crore voters in Panchayat elections, he said.

Officers removed for the first time
Singh said that for the first time the Commission had written to the government to remove officers who are continuously working for more than three years in a civic body. Even though these officers have no direct role in the civic body elections, the Commission had received 85 complaints that such officers can influence the elections.