J&K Panchayat and Municipal Elections Likely Postponed Until After Lok Sabha Polls : Official

Lok Sabha elections are scheduled for April-May, and Sharma highlighted the commission’s ongoing statutory duty of revising and updating electoral rolls in the Union territory. Issues related to OBC reservation, identification of reserved wards, and the potential delimitation of wards to address elector distribution imbalances are critical tasks to be addressed before conducting panchayat and municipal polls. The housing and Urban Development Department is actively pursuing a communication suggesting the transfer of the mandate to conduct municipal electoral processes from the chief electoral officer to the State Election Commission.

The CEO’s office has called for a fresh delimitation exercise to address large-scale differences in the elector bases of various wards within municipal corporations and committees, emphasizing the need for constitutional provisions to mandate this change. The five-year terms of most municipalities, including the Jammu Municipal Corporation and the Srinagar Municipal Corporation, ended recently, adding urgency to the electoral process.

The CEO’s office has also cited objections from petitioners regarding significant differences in elector bases, advocating for a comprehensive delimitation exercise to rectify representation imbalances.