Elections to cooperative institutions across Maharashtra have been put on hold once again. With preparations underway for local self-government elections, the state’s Cooperation Department last week issued an official order postponing the polls. However, elections of housing societies have been exempted from this suspension.
The second phase of elections for municipal councils and nagar panchayats is scheduled for December 20. In addition, elections to 29 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, 32 Zilla Parishads and 336 Panchayat Samitis are lined up in the coming weeks.
Given the massive administrative effort required, the state government noted that the full deployment of administrative and police machinery for these local body elections would make it difficult to spare adequate manpower for cooperative elections.
Therefore, except for institutions directed by the High Court or Supreme Court to conduct elections, all other cooperative institutions will have their polls deferred until the completion of local body elections.
Earlier, due to heavy rainfall and related disruptions, these elections had already been postponed until September 30.
