Uttarakhand poll date may be deferred due to cold wave

The Election Commission is keeping open the option to reschedule the assembly elections in Uttarakhand if the cold wave continues for the next few days.

State Chief Electoral Officer Radha Ratudi said she would be forwarding the reports to the Election Commission to take the final decision. Sources in the EC said it is monitoring weather reports before arriving at a final decision. She has asked the district officers to send reports on places that witnessed or are likely to witness heavy snow.

The voting date is likely to be changed only if the temperatures remain low enough to affect voter turnout, though parties are complaining that they would not be able to campaign because of the cold wave, sources said.

The state is slated to go to polls on January 30, but heavy snowfall and landslides in the upper reaches, as also the chilling cold, is forcing the Election Commission to consider revising polling dates.

A delegation of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, led by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, met Chief Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi in New Delhi on Tuesday and urged that the poll dates for Uttarakhand be postponed to February 10.

The state election office has already asked all the district electoral officers to appraise it about the pace of the nominations and difficulties, if any, faced by the candidates in filing of nominations because of the weather conditions.

They said the poll date in Uttarakhand was fixed after taking all aspects into account, including consultations with the Meteorological Department.

"We are open to changing the poll date itself, but the better course open to us is to have re-polls only in the polling stations where the weather creates problems. There is sufficient time gap between the polling and counting dates to have re-polls wherever required," sources added.