Election to go ahead as planned

pune:the state election commissioner v. y. rajwade has issued orders to top civic officials to go ahead with the election schedule for the municipal councils and corporation, notwithstanding the demand by the congress party to abolish the existing election process. reliable sources in the pmc said that mr rajwade held a closed-door meeting with top government officials during his visit to pune on friday.senior officials including divisional commissioner umeshchandra sarangi, municipal commissioner t. c. benjamin, district collector madhukar kokate and the pmc's election officer rajendra nimbalkar participated in the meeting. sources said that during the meeting mr rajwade made it clear that the demand to scrap the existing election process for the pmc elections can not be entertained as the elections are scheduled for february 2002. under the present election process, the pmc's election office has formed 48 panels comprising the area of the fringe village that have been deleted. the congress is demanding the scrapping of the existing election process and re-demarcation of the municipal ward boundaries, excluding the 15 villages that have been delinked fully and five partially. mr rajwade, sources said, pointed out that the demand cannot be entertained as the pmc is not ready to give an undertaking to finalise the redemarcation of municipal wards in a short span of 15-20 days. the pmc has communicated that it will require at least two months to re-demarcate the wards, sources said.