Shimla, July 11 -- The Himachal Pradesh state election commission (SEC) has pulled up state government over the postponement of Urban Local Body (ULB) election reservation roster and has asked the state to immediately withdraw the order. In a letter written to chief secretary, the state election commission has asserted that the urban development department has no legal mandate to alter a schedule issued by a constitutional authority. The letter of the SEC came on Thursday, hours after the state's urban development department issued a letter postponing the finalisation of the ULB reservation roster due to the non-availability of updated Census data. The elections in all the municipal bodies in the state except Shimla municipal corporation, are scheduled to be held this year. These elections are to be held in 7 MC's , 29 municipal councils and 37 nagar panchayats apart from this elections are also to be held in more than 3,600 panchayats. For the municipal elections, the election commission released the schedule for deciding the ward division, delimitation, reservation roster 2 months ago. According to this, reservation of all the wards has to be done by Friday, July 11. Complete information of the reserved wards has to be given to the Election Commission by July 15. On Thursday, the Himachal government directed a postponement of the reservation process for ULBs due to absence of updated demographic data from the delayed national Census. In an order dated July 10, 2025, the Principal Secretary (Urban Development) communicated to all deputy commissioners - except those of Lahaul-Spiti and Kinnaur - that "due to the non-availability of latest data about the actual numbers of electors of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities, resulting from the delay in the Census the implementation/finalisation by issuance of the reservation roster for the ULBs elections shall be postponed until the latest Census data becomes available." However, the SEC firmly rejected this move, reasserting its sole constitutional authority over poll-related processes.htc...