'EC not able to conduct K'taka polls according to DC's report'

New Delhi, Feb 3 (UNI) The Election Commission will not be in a position to hold the coming assembly election in Karnataka slated for April or May in accordance with the recently recommended Delimitation Commission(DC) report, according to EC sources.

''The EC will require an additional time of at least three to four months after the Presidential notification of the DC report,'' they added.

The EC can advance the election by six months before the expiry of the full-term of the Assembly concerned. However, beyond the full-term of the Assembly or Parliament, the EC is not empowered to postpone the House.

Meanwhile, the EC will have its regular quarterly review meeting on February 7 to discuss issues relating to free and fair elections, review of the 2008 electoral rolls and 2009 Parliamentary elections.

The meeting will also focus on the speedy preparations of photo electoral rolls to reduce the chances of ''bogus'' voting in the elections.

The meeting will be chaired by Chief Election Commissioner N Gopalaswami and attended by two Election Commissioners Navin Chawla and S Y Quraishi.

It assumes significance as eight state Assemblies will go to the polls during the year and in the first quarter of 2009. These states are -- Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh -- with Lok Sabha elections due in May 2009.

Though the Union Cabinet has decided that the next elections will be held in constituencies as redrawn by the DC, the Commission will go ahead with the polls preparations based on the previous demarcated constituencies following the absence of any notification in this regard.

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