Wants results of zilla parishad and civic elections to be declared after February 16.
State opposition parties are planning to move court over the State Election Commission’s decision to allow the zilla parishad results to be revealed ahead of the municipal corporation elections.
The State Election Commission on Tuesday announced the elections in 27 zilla parishads on February 7 and ten municipal corporation elections, including the BMC (Mumbai) polls, on February 16.
The opposition parties have joined hands to take the matter to court, fearing that the outcome of the zilla parishad elections announced on February 8 will influence the municipal corporation elections on February 16. The EC has already received 345 petitions demanding changes in the poll dates.
In a discussion with state election commissioner Neela Satyanarayan, the leader of the opposition in state council Vinod Tawde said, “We want the results of both, the zilla parishad and municipal corporation elections, to be declared after February 16. Ideally, the election commission should have announced the elections for municipal corporations, including the BMC (Mumbai) polls, ahead of those of the zilla parishads. But if they cannot reverse the decision, the least we expect them to do is to withhold all the poll results till February 16.”
Sources in the election commission told DNA, “We can understand the concerns raised by the Opposition parties. In a couple of days we will try to see if we can take the decision to withhold the results of zilla parishads.”
The sources also indicated that the decision to convene the zilla parishad elections ahead of the municipal corporation polls was because of the state examination schedule across Maharashtra, although the opposition parties are not willing to buy this theory.
A senior BJP leader, on condition of anonymity, said, “The explanation given to us by the election office is that they don’t have adequate electronic voting machines. They have to use the same EVMs used in the zilla parishads for the municipal corporation elections a week later. But such reasoning is baseless.”
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