THE counting of votes, to be cast in six municipal corporations in Gujarat on November 22, would take place together with that of taluka and district panchayats, the state poll panel on Thursday (October 29) told the Supreme Court.
The counsel for the Gujarat State Election Commission (SEC) told a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and A M Sapre that he has received the instruction to this effect.
The elections in six municipal corporations of Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Jamnagar would be held on November 22 with counting of votes on November 26.
In the second phase, 56 municipalities, 31 district panchayats and about 230 taluka panchayats would go to polls on November 29 and the counting of votes on December 2.
It was alleged that the counting of votes of municipal corporations on November 26 may influence or affect the voters of other municipalities and panchayats which would go into polls three days after the counting.
Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the state government, agreed with the submissions of the poll panel on counting of votes.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Harin Raval, appearing for four Vadodra residents, expressed satisfaction on the statement that the counting will take place together.
Earlier, the Supreme Court had stayed the operation of Gujarat High Court order dismissing a plea challenging the holding of local body polls under certain provision which increased the number of councillors in a particular ward to four.
It had issued notices to Gujarat government, state election commissioner and others seeking their reply within two weeks on the plea challenging certain provisions of Gujarat Provincial Municipal Corporation Act, 1949, Gujarat Local Authorities Laws (Amendment) Act, 2009 and Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation Rules.
It was contended that the multi-member ward election violated fundamental rights of reservation and representation as enshrined in the Constitution.
The plea, filed in the apex court, said, "Rule 4 of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporation (Delimitation of Wards in the City and Allocation of Reserved Seats) Rules, 1994 states that all wards shall be multi-member wards with three councilors. This was amended in the year 2015 increasing the number of councillors to fourin each ward…
"This amendment did not take into account the specific requirements of each ward and for reservation purposes did not take into account the latest available census data so that proportionate representation could be given to the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes."
It was contended that "the manner in which Gujarat government as well as the state Election Commission had decided to conduct elections of councillors to different Municipal Corporations, was unconstitutional and invalid".
