Delhi MCD Poll schedule announcement deferred

March 9, New Delhi: The State Election Commission has deferred the announcement of Delhi MCD poll election dates, which were to be made today (Wednesday) evening. The announcements were deferred after the commission received a communication from the government.

As per reports, The state election commissioner said he got a communication from the Centre after which it has been decided to postpone the announcement for the next 7 days.

“As central government raised few issues that are yet to be legally examined by us, we’ll not be able to announce MCD election dates as of now. We’ll take some more days. We’ve to conduct the elections before 18th May,” SK Srivastava, State Election Commissioner said.

Moreover, the elections won’t be postponed as per the State Election Commissioner & will be conducted before 18th May. He further said, “We aren’t postponing the elections. If at all unification of municipal corporations take place before 18th May, then we have to examine the situation. That’s why we need time as of now to seek legal opinion on it.”

The State Election Commission has already released guidelines for the model code of conduct which will come into effect as soon as the dates are declared.

The municipal corporation of Delhi has 272 constituencies spread across over three municipal corporations — North, South & East. The number of wards are being specified by the SEC in January 2022, It is to be reserved for candidates of the Scheduled Caste across the three municipalities. 20 wards in North Delhi Municipal Corporation, 15 in South Delhi Municipal Corporation, and 11 in East Delhi Municipal Corporation was stated by the SEC to be reserved for SC candidates. Moreover, 50 percent of wards will be reserved for women candidates.

The civic body is elected for a term of five years and the current civic body’s term would end in April 2022 which was elected in April 2017.

Currently, the three municipal corporations of Delhi are being ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party which had been in control of MCD since its trifurcation in 2012.