HYDERABAD: Elections to the eight civilian wards in Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) in Telangana — which were supposed to be held on April 30 — have been deferred.
Releasing an official communication from Delhi, joint secretary of the defence ministry Rakesh Mittal said on Friday that the central government hereby rescinds the MoD’s gazette notification issued on February 17, which stated that ordinary elections to the 57 Cantonment Boards (including Secunderabad Cantonment) would be held on April 30.
Regarding SCB, officials are busy preparing the final electoral rolls.
All the major parties — including the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), Bharatiya Janata Party, Congress, TDP and other parties — took the SCB polls as a prestige issue and had planned to finalize the list of winning aspirants in all the eight SCB wards.
Meanwhile, an SCB-based non-governmental organization, Cantonment Vikas Manch, which was fighting on the SCB-GHMC merger issue and was opposing the MoD’s sudden decision on conducting the polls, had approached the high court, recently and filed a writ petition, urging it to postpone the polls.
“The SCB-GHMC merger process is almost in its final stage, but is halted due to the MoD’s gazette notification on the poll schedule and we strongly oppose it,” said secretary of Cantonment Vikas Manch S Ravinder.
With their efforts only, the MoD deferred the polls, claimed Ravinder.
