The Hindu : National : Karnataka polls likely to be postponed

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Friday, Feb 15, 2008
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Karnataka polls likely to be postponed

S. Rajendran

Bangalore: Elections to the Legislative Assembly in Karnataka are unlikely to be held before May 28, with the Union Cabinet on Thursday approving the recommendations of the Kuldip Singh Commission on Delimitation of Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly constituencies.

It is now for President Pratibha Patil to sign the formal notification, following which the Election Commission will have to rework the poll schedule for Karnataka in the background of the implementation of the Delimitation Commission report. The office of the Chief Electoral Officer of the State on Thursday published the draft of the electoral rolls with respect to 208 of the 224 constituencies. The draft of the rolls for the Assembly constituencies in the Bangalore Urban district and Bangalore city are scheduled to be published on February 18 and the final notification of the electoral rolls for the State has been fixed for March 10.

An official in the election office here told The Hindu that should the Delimitation Commission report be implemented then, this whole exercise of electoral rolls revision carried out over the past four months would stand defeated. Nearly Rs. 4 crore has been spent so far on the revision exercise.

Deadline

With Parliament approving President’s Rule in the State in November last and the President acting on the recommendations of the Union Cabinet dissolving the twelfth Karnataka Legislative Assembly on November 28 , it was widely believed by all political parties here that elections would be held in April or May.

The deadline for the election process to be completed and the new Assembly constituted is May 28, and this is unlikely as all the 224 Assembly constituencies have to be freshly demarcated. During his visit to Bangalore (January 9 and 10), Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami categorically stated that if the Delimitation Commission recommendations were to be implemented, the Election Commission “requires six months to complete the review of electoral rolls and hold the elections from the date of Presidential notification.”

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