Countermanded polls in wards by December 15

The State Election Commission (SEC) on Tuesday informed the Kerala High Court that steps would be taken to complete fresh elections to the wards by December 15 where elections have been countermanded due to the death of candidates.

The submission was made before Justice V. Chitambaresh when a writ petition seeking an early election in Ward 8 of the Puthussery grama panchayat in Palakkad came up for hearing. Recording the submission of the SEC, the court later disposed of the petition.

State Election Commission counsel Murali Purushothaman submitted that the commission would take steps to notify election to Ward 8 along with other constituencies on November 9, 2015, where elections had been countermanded under Section 68 of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act due to the death of candidates. The election process would be completed before December 15. Countering the plea of the petitioner to postpone the elections to all other wards of the Puthussery panchayat, the commission said the counting for the present election would be completed on November 7.

There were altogether 23 wards in the panchayat. The declaration of the result of a particular panchayat could not be kept in abeyance as the results of the grama panchayat, the block panchayat and the district panchayat were displayed one after the other in the voting machine.

If the counting of votes in the 22 constituencies of the panchayat was to be postponed, it would not be possible to count the votes in respect of the constituencies of the block panchayat and district panchayat in which the 22 constituencies of the panchayat had been included.

The petition was filed by Rafi, an LDF candidate of Ward 8 where election had been countermanded due to the death of BJP candidate Shanmugham Chettiyar.