On the directions of the Nainital High Court, the Uttarakhand Government will hold civic body elections in the state on April 19. The results will be declared on April 21.

The term of the civic bodies in the state had expired on February 15 and the state Government had appointed administrators in most of these bodies. The State Election Commission, responsible for holding local body elections, had approached the Nainital High Court against the state Government for not holding local body elections. The state Government had argued that the delay was due to the slowdown in the delimitation process in certain segments of some of the local bodies. However, the Commission had refuted these arguments.

The Nainital High Court had directed the state Government and the State Election Commission to announce a mutually acceptable date for civic body elections. On March 17, the state Government filed an affidavit before a Division Bench of Chief Justice V K Gupta and Justice J C S Rawat stating that civic body elections will be held on April 19. The notification for the civic polls will be published on March 20.

Uttarakhand has one municipal corporation, 32 municipalities, 27 nagar panchayats. Out of the 32 municipalities, three -- Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath -- will not have elections since there's no permanent population. These places have nominated bodies. A total of 1,417,341 voters in 634 wards will elect their representatives to run the local bodies.