by Franklin R. Satyapalan
Commissioner of Elections Deyananda Dissanayake requests all Government Agents in the North East to carry out their duties and accept nominations for local government polls until the United Front Government takes steps to bring amendments to postpone the polls in the North-East, authoritative governmental sources stated on Friday.

This was said to Government Agents from the North-East who met Commissioner Dissanayake on Thursday after they met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe earlier in the morning.

Commissioner Dissanayake who requested the GAs to submit their situation report on the holding to the polls, explained that once the nominations for the polls had been gazetted he had no authority to postpone the polls in any part of the country but to act according to the Local Government Elections Act.

He requested the GAs to carry out the normal election functions until amendments are in place empowering him to postpone the polls and for the GAs to meet Minister of Defence PC Tilak Marapana in this connection.

Later the evening a meeting was held at the Ministry of Defence chaired by Minister of Defence Tilak Marapana with Minister of Constitutional Affairs Prof. G. L. Peiris also in attendance for the Government Agents from the North-East in this connection.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had met Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and requested that the local government polls be put off in the North-East, as it could disrupt the good will conducive to initiating peace talks with the LTTE.

Meanwhile, SLMC Leader Rauf Hakeem has requested Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that he does not want local government polls in the North-East to be postponed. The party wanted the polls to be held in the Eastern Province especially (Ampara) Digamadulla Electoral District.

It was reported that cabinet had okayed last Wednesday to bring an amendment to the Local Government Polls Act empowering the Commissioner of Elections with powers to postpone the polls if needed in any part of the country at his discretion.

The United National Front is expected to bring this amendment before parliament when it meets of February 5. The TNA led by TULF Secretary General R. Sampanthan is also expected to meet Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in parliament on this date.

Meanwhile, with the nominations for the Local Government polls commencing yesterday the Elections Department had received deposits from Independent Groups to contest Colombo, Kandy, Matara, Ampara, Kurunegala, Polonnaruwa, Ratnapura and Moneragala electoral districts.

The department is receiving nominations to contest 311 local bodies where 12.4 million voters will be eligible to vote, according to the 2000 electoral register.

There are 256 Pradeshiya Sabhas, 37 Urban Councils and 18 Municipal Councils included in the 311 local bodies for which polls are to be held as scheduled shortly and nominations will be received upto 12 noon on February 8.