Jaipur, Nov. 13 -- Days after the appointments of administrators in 309 municipal corporations and 11,000 panchayats, the urban development and housing minister Jhabar Singh Kharra said on Wednesday that the local body election cannot be conducted before April-May next year. "Our target was to finish it in January and February next year. However, the election commission has now announced Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in our state which will be over in February after which there will be board exams in all the schools. There is no chance to conduct local body polls before April-May now," Kharra told HT on Tuesday. Aiming for a simultaneous election in the panchayats and the civic bodies in the state, the Rajasthan government issued an order in June directing to conduct a fresh delimitation survey of all the existing panchayats and municipality wards. Meanwhile, a cabinet sub-committee was also formed under the supervision of the social justice minister Avinash Gehlot to oversee the process and submit a report to chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma to take the final decision on polling. After they submitted their report last month, Kharra declared that the polling in all panchayats and wards will be conducted altogether by December 31. However, it initially got delayed due to the prolonged delimitation survey and in September Kharra announced that the poll will be conducted altogether in January as the tenure of all the municipalities and panchayats will be over by then. "Meanwhile, the former state election commissioner (Madhukar Gupta) also started the electoral roll revision process in September based on the old delimitation. The new commissioner has now cancelled it but the new revision will take time. But, we expect it can be done in 45 days once the SIR final roll is published," Kharra said. He added the survey by the OBC commission is also pending although they assured to submit their report by December. "The high court has directed us to conduct the election as soon as possible. But, we were not ready for the SIR and the delay in these related processes. Election will be done as soon as the SIR is over," he said. In June, the state government had already appointed administrators in some of the outgoing municipalities and panchayats while the rest whose tenure was over on November 9 were also appointed administrators. The three bifurcated municipalities in Jaipur, Jodhpur, and Kota had also been merged. "This arrangement might be causing some initial confusion in many administrative works for the people. However, we are keeping a watch of the situation. Our officials are putting their best effort to deliver the works smoothly," said Kharra. Congress spokesperson, Swarnim Chaturvedi, said, "BJP didn't even want to conduct the election at all. How would even the OBC commission submit their report as all government staff are busy in SIR? And the government also doesn't have to allocate any funds to the panchayats and municipalities till no public representatives are heading them. This is only a political calculation."...