http://oheraldo.in/node/10914
Campaigning for CCP polls ends BY HERALD REPORTER PANJIM, MARCH 10 – Campaigning today concluded for the March 12, 2006 Corporation of the City of Panaji elections, setting the stage for the ballot to be cast on Sunday to elect a full-fledged 30 member governing body. Election officials said that polling staff will be dispatched to their respective polling stations tomorrow. Tight security arrangements have also been made to ensure peaceful elections. As many as 100 police personnel are being deployed for the same. Earlier today, Panjim MLA Manohar Parrikar said that the Panel for Progress received an overwhelming response during the last 15 days of campaigning and expects to win majority of the seats. He said, "We have carried out our campaigns in a very low profile and inexpensive manner." Parrikar also said that he was convinced that voters will not succumb to pressure tactics from the opposite groups and appealed to the voters to come out in large numbers to vote on Sunday. PDA powers: Parrikar, during whose regime, the Panjim Corporation was created despite opposition said, "The powers for planning and development of Panjim should be vested in the CCP and not the NGPDA." As highlighted by the Herald earlier this week, these powers are vested in Section 255 of the Act but have not been devolved to the corporation by the Government in power since CCP's Constitution. -- TUMCHER AXIRVAD ASSUM; DEV BOREM KORUM. Gabe Menezes. London, England