Bhubaneswar: Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) department Wednesday issued notification regarding the election of mayors and corporators for three Municipal Corporations, including chairpersons and councillors for 107 Municipalities and NACs.
The H&UD department issued formal notification to conduct ULB elections 2022 calling upon wards to elect mayors, corporators, chairpersons and councillors as per the SEC’s recommendation.
With this notification of the H&UD department, the dates for upcoming polls for urban local bodies in Odisha are very likely to be announced soon. The SEC has already initiated preparations in this regard.
A source said that the term of five years from the date of appointment of elected representatives to various posts in Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC), Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) and the Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) has been completed.
Also read: Polling held in Nagada for first time in 20 yrs, Niyamgiri in 15 yrs
Term of five years from the date of appointment has ended in respect of 103 Municipalities and NACs. In addition, four more NACs such as Chandabali, Dhamnagar, Bijepur and Remuna were newly constituted, which await elections to the urban local bodies (ULBs).
In view of such a situation, it is highly essential to conduct the general elections with a purpose to reconstitute the Municipal Corporations and to hold general elections to the chairpersons and councillors with a purpose to reconstitute the 107 Municipalities and NACs.
“State Election Commission (SEC) had previously recommended the government to publish a notification calling upon all wards of the said Municipal Corporations to elect Mayors and Corporators and calling upon all the wards in all the 107 Municipalities and NACs to elect the Chairpersons and Councillors,” a senior official informed.
“Delimitation of wards and reservation of seats and offices of Mayors of the said Municipal Corporations including the delimitation of wards and reservation of seats (except ward No-4 of Bhadrak Municipality) and reservation of offices of the chairpersons in 107 Municipalities and NACs have been completed in the meantime,” the official added.
It is pertinent to mention here that in the last ULBs polls held in the state in 2013-14, the democratic exercise was carried out in a total of 94 ULBs. The ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) had won in as many as 70 ULBs, Congress party in 15, BJP in two and Independents in six.
Elections to the said 107 ULBs (48 Municipalities, 59 NACs) and three Municipal Corporations will be held simultaneously for the first time. Mayors will be directly elected by people. Hence, each polling booth will have two EVMs. Also, ‘None of the above’ (NOTA) option will be made available for use by the voters for the first time in civic polls.
Urban voters will exercise their right to franchise at a total of 4,584 polling booths in 1,931 Wards in the upcoming civic body polls.
PNN