Get caste certificates ready for civic polls: State EC

All those who intend to contest the forthcoming civic polls in reserved categories have been urged by the state Election Commission to secure caste validity certificates in advance. A notice issued by the commission states that 10 municipal corporations,195 municipal councils,27 zilla parishads and 309 panchayat samitis will go to the polls between December 2011 and March 2012. This comes in the wake of instances in which failure to produce caste validity certificate in time has led to disqualification of the candidate. Candidates contesting the elections from reserved seats have to submit caste validity certificate issued by the scrutiny committee along with caste certificate while filing their nomination papers. The notice has directed the candidates to apply for caste validity certificates in a stipulated format along with required documents,to the district collectors concerned. “Before the date for filing the nominations come by,the candidates have been asked to submit their applications to the resepective collectorates,’said a government officer from the state election department. These applications should ideally be filed a minimum of four months and a maximum six months before announcement of the election programme. The state Election Commission has said that timely filing of applications for securing the caste validity certificate will ensure candidates get the mandatory caste validity certificates before filing of nominations.