amraiz khan
The Election Commission has issued rules for local body elections as per new rules candidates will not be authorized to spend more than Rs5 million on the election campaign.
According to the rules, local government elections will be held on party basis and not on basis of Neighborhood and Village Panchayat Councils. Electoral group will not be allotted election symbol of any political party. Expenditure limit for councilors will be Rs. 5 lakhs, expenditure for mayors of municipal corporations will be Rs. 20 lakhs, expenditure limit for councilors has been fixed at Rs. 3 lakhs.
Expenditure limit for Municipal Committee, Mayor of Town Committee and Chairperson of Tehsil Committee will be Rs. 5 lakhs. Expenditure limit for election campaign for Councilor has been fixed at Rs100,000. According to the rules, the fee for submission of nomination papers is Rs25,000 for Lord Mayor of Metropolitan Corporations, Rs15,000 for Councilors, Rs20,000 for Mayors of Municipal Corporations, Rs. 10,000 for Councilors, Municipal Committee, The fee for the mayor of the town committee and the chairperson of the tehsil council will be Rs 15,000.
According to the new rules of local body elections, a candidate will be able to submit two nomination papers.
It should be noted that the Punjab government has implemented the Local Bodies Act 2019 in Punjab including Lahore. Under the Act, local body elections were to be held by April 2020 but the Punjab government had amended the Act and extended it by 11 months till February 2021. Now the government has decided to extend the election by another five months.
