Rajasthan high court extends deadline for municipal elections

Jaipur: The Rajasthan high court has extended the deadline for conducting municipal elections in Rajasthan to August 31. The court issued the order after hearing an application to extended the deadline for elections for the municipal corporations in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Kota. The application had been filed by the state election commission and the Rajasthan government.

In the application, the government argued that it was not possible to conduct municipal elections keeping in view the COVID-19 situation in Rajasthan. The election commission had filed the application requesting the court to extend the deadline for six municipal corporation elections in three cities – namely Jaipur, Jodhpur and Kota.

There is lockdown in the state till May 3. The entire administration machinery and police force were busy preventing the spread of the virus. The people will need to follow social distancing guidelines even after lockdown restrictions are withdrawn so the elections in six municipal corporations of Jodhpur, Jaipur and Kota need to be postponed, the election commission argued in the application.

Advocate RB Mathur filed the application in which the state election commission requested to amend the Rajasthan high court’s order dated March 18 and extend the election deadline. The double bench of chief justice Indrajit Mohanty and Justice SK Sharma extended the deadline to August 31.

COVID-19 continues to spread at alarming pace in Jaipur and many other cities. Rajasthan reported 73 new cases till 2 pm on Tuesday. Of them, 23 were reported in Jaipur alone. The total number of coronavirus positive cases in Jaipur has gone up to 865 in Jaipur and 2335 in Rajasthan. As many as 51 people have died in the state.