The State Election Commission of Gujarat on Friday rejected Congress party’s demand to carry out counting process of six municipal corporation elections on 23rd October.

Gujarat Congress had submitted a memorandum to the state election commission demanding that the counting of six Municipal Corporation elections and District, Taluka and Panchayat elections should be held on one day on 23rd October. The Congress party had proposed this with a logic that the Municipal Corporation election results on 12 October will influence the voters in District, Taluka and Panchayat elections that are to be held on 21 October. The Congress party demanded that Municipal Corporation elections should be held as per the existing schedule(8 October) only, but its result date should be 23rd October which is also a result day for district, taluka panchayats and nagarpalikas. This would make a way for non-influenced district,taluka,nagarpalika polls.

However the state election commission on Friday took a decision, not to accept the Congress demand. According to state election commissioner K.C.Kapoor, even the Gujarat High Court has accepted election commission’s logic that when the voting process is held on different days, the counting process should also be done accordingly. After the election process begins, there is no possibility to change the schedule. Both election programmes(six Municipal Corporations and district,taluka,nagarpalika) are different, and they should not be connected with each other.

(In Photo:KC Kapoor, Gujarat state election commissioner)