Delhi civic elections are deferred to April 23 for exam

NEW DELHI: The municipal elections in the Capital will be held on April 23 instead of April 22 as decided earlier, the Delhi state election commission said on Wednesday.

State Election Commissioner SK Srivastava said the decision was taken in view of the Class 12 exam, which are scheduled on the same date. The votes will be counted on April 26, three days after the polls.

“Polling has been deferred by a day because of the CBSE’s Class 12 Hindi exam. The voting will be held on April 23. Similarly, the counting of votes has also been postponed for a day to April 26,” he said.

The commission said the dates of filing nomination papers, withdrawal or scrutiny of papers have not been changed.

“Because of the scheduled exam on April 22, we were finding it difficult to manage staff required for elections. A sizeable number of teachers and police personnel are engaged for smooth polling. Keeping all factors in mind, the decision was taken to change the dates. We can’t postpone the elections for long, hence it is being deferred by a day,” he added. As per earlier schedule, the nomination process will begin from March 27. April 3 would be the last date for filing nominations. Scrutiny of nominations will take place on April 5.

The last date for withdrawal of nomination is April 8 for 272 wards municipal elections.