The elections to the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) and Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC) will be held by March 5, 2025.
This was informed by District Council Affairs Minister Prestone Tynsong to media persons here today.
Tynsong informed that the Governor has given his assent to the proposal of the cabinet on August 29 to extend the term of the two Autonomous District Councils by another six months from September 5.
“The Governor has stated that the election process should be completed within this second extended period by March 5, 2025. The election process for the new House should be constituted in both the District Councils within the given date,” Tynsong said.
Stating that the State government is not scared to face the elections, Tynsong said that the public may be concerned with the second extension of the term despite the delimitation committee completing their work.
According to him, the State government decided to extend the term for another six months because the entire process of scheduling the elections, revision of electoral rolls, inspection of voting machines and procurement of new voting machines would take time.
He also reiterated that the State government is guided by the Sixth Schedule which says that the Governor can always extend the normal term of the District Councils in Meghalaya when the situation arises and not more than one year.
“Further, the extension was done after all details of the schedule for the elections of the two councils had been calculated. Now it will take not less than one and half month only to notify in the appendix of the AD Rules. The AD Rules have to mention the list of villages wherever the changes took place and that will take not less than one and half months. Thereafter, the revision of electoral rolls has to take place. The DCA department is on the job,” Tynsong explained.
To ease the process, the State government has also sought permission from the Election Commission to allow the District Council Affairs Department to access the electoral roll published by the commission.
Tynsong reiterated that all these processes are time consuming and the government has taken all the issues into consideration. According to him, it would take not less than three and a half months to prepare the final electoral roll.
He also said that the State government has requested the public undertaking which produces the EVMs to come to Shillong to inspect the old EVMs to ascertain their conditions and in case they are not functional, fresh voting machines would have to be procured.
Stating that the District Council Affairs Department would order for 2000 new EVMs in case there are issues with the old EVMs, Tynsong said that this process would take not less than three months.
