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Uva polls by end of Sept. amid charges
View(s):Elections to the Uva Provincial Council are likely to be held by the end of September following the dissolution of the council on Friday midnight, an elections official said yesterday. He said nominations would be called within a week’s time and thereafter the elections would be held on a Saturday between five to eight weeks after the closing date for nominations. If there were a large number of nominations, the Elections Deepartment would need the maximum period of eight weeks to conduct the polls.
Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya on Friday met political party representatives to discuss the campaign issues for the Uva polls in the districts of Badulla and Moneragala. The Commissioner said that in keeping with the change of the population figures in the two districts, the number of members to be elected from the districts would be changed under election laws.
Three more members are to be elected from the Monragala district, raising the number of councillors to 14 while in the Badulla district the number of members will be reduced from 21 to 18. A total of 34 members are elected to the provincial council, including two bonus seats. The JVP and other opposition parties have protested against the change in the allocation of seats alleging that it was being done with ulterior party political motives to get more seats for the ruling alliance.
Opposition party representatives also charged that the outgoing chief Minister Sashindra Rajapaksa had already started distributing container loads of goodies ahead of the elections. The commissioner promised he would look into the complaint.