Gandhinagar,  Amid the spiralling Covid-19 cases, the Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have appealed to the State Election Commission (SEC) to postpone the Gandhinagar Municipal Corporation (GMC) elections, slated for April 18.

The counting will take place on April 20.

The Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) chief Amit Chavda had written to the State Election Commissioner Sanjay Prasad, urging him to postpone the Gandhinagar Corporation polls.

"When the elections to the local bodies of six corporations were announced, we had asked the SEC to simultaneously hold the Gandhinagar corporation elections along with the rest, but our request went unheeded. Even prior to the announcement of the GMC polls by the SEC, we had requested to withhold the same due to the surge in Covid cases across the state, but that too was disregarded," said Chavda in his letter to the SEC.

"But after the announcement by the SEC, there is a tremendous rise in the number of coronavirus in the state and day-by-day the count is breaking all the record. Now the situation has gone out of control. Even the Gujarat High Court had also advised for a lockdown and thereafter the authorities were forced to impose a night curfew in Gandhinagar from 8 pm to 6 am," said the letter.

"Therefore our party demands that the Gandhinagar Corporation elections should be postponed by the SEC till the situation improves," the GPCC president added.

Even the AAP has also requested the SEC to postpone the Gandhinagar Corporation elections for a period of 3 months.

"The AAP has declared 40 candidates out of the total 43 seats for the polls. Our internal assessment tells us that the AAP will be forming the local body in Gandhinagar. But the AAP is more concerned about the lives of the people then winning the elections. Looking at the present situation, the AAP legal cell appeals to the SEC to postpone this election for 3 months, so that most of the voters can get vaccinated during the time and be secured against the virus," says the AAP letter to the SEC.

The poll-bound Gandhinagar has 11 wards consisting of 44 seats.