Mumbai, Dec 2 (IANS) The Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC), on Tuesday, convened an online meeting of 29 Municipal Commissioners to review preparations for polls which may be held before the rural Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis.

A video-conference of all Municipal Commissioners in this regard has been called on December 4 to discuss the issues in this regard.

Last week, Supreme Court while giving a go-ahead to the SEC to conduct local body polls in the state, had not specified the poll procedure for rural local bodies where the 50 per cent reservation limit has been crossed.

In Maharashtra, 17 out of 32 Zilla Parishads and 88 out of 336 Panchayat Samitis have crossed the 50 per cent reservation.

On the contrary, it gave the approval for the polling in all 29 municipal corporations in the state, despite Nagpur and Chandrapur marginally crossing the 50 per cent reservation mark.

“The SEC is mulling whether to take a safe route where clear direction has been given regarding urban local bodies. As per the initial plan, municipal corporation polls were to be held in the third and last phase of local body polls. But now that the apex court has clearly given the go-ahead to election in all urban bodies, the process can be initiated,” said a senior SEC official.

As per the new schedule for urban areas, the earlier deadline of November 27 announced to submit objections on voters’ list for municipal corporations has been changed to December 3.

The earlier deadline of December 5 to publish final voters’ list will now be December 10.

“Once the final voters list is announced, the SEC can announce the election anytime. Therefore, the meeting with Municipal Commissioners is being held on December 4, a day after the deadline for submitting objections. It will give clear idea as to how to move further,” the officer said.

The officer added that the direction is to hold election in local bodies which are not crossing 50 per cent reservation limit.

“In 17 Zilla Parishads and 88 Panchayat Samitis, the reservation stands above 50 per cent. We have not yet decided on that issue. Holding rest of the Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samitis election now would keep the fate of others hanging,” he said, adding that the SEC may prefer to hold urban local body polls earlier than others.

Out of 34 Zilla Parishads, 32 have administrators, except for Bhandara and Gondia.

The term of these two Zilla Parishads will expire in May 2027.

In a total of 351 Panchayat Samitis, 336 have administrators where elections were to be held.

–IANS

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