Panchayat poll notification out

Though the notification for completing the process of panchayat elections by January 15 has been issued, the actual date of the election is yet to be issued. Sources say the same would be done by the Election Commissioner for UT, B. Parshad. The date is likely to be announced next week, after his likely arrival here on December 21.

As many as 80 polling centres would be set up, where 57,219 villagers would exercise their franchise. A total of 11,606 voters are SCs.

Meanwhile, the reservation of seats for sarpanches has raked up a controversy as certain Congress leaders have opposed the reservation of four seats for SCs.

In a memorandum to the UT Finance Secretary, INTUC president Ram Pal Sharma, Pind Sudhar Samiti president Bhupinder Singh Badheri, Chandigarh Territorial Youth Congress president Chander Mukhi Sharma and Vikram Sharma today called for reservation of only three seats of 17 sarpanches as per the available figures of voters. The leaders threatened legal action as according to the census figures, the ratio of reserved seats comes to only 3.44 while that for general category comes to 13.55, and thus they have called for reservation accordingly.