Amendment proposes political party-based municipal elections

GANGTOK,: An amendment bill was placed in the Sikkim Legislative Assembly on Wednesday proposing to hold political party-based municipal elections.

State Urban Development minister Bhoj Raj Rai tabled the Sikkim Municipalities (Amendment) Bill 2025.

“Whereas, it has been considered expedient to amend the Sikkim Municipalities Act, 2007 inter-alia to provide for holding of election to the Municipalities with the support of the political parties in the State of Sikkim. With this object in view, the Bill has been framed,” said the Urban Development minister while introducing the bill.

The amendment sought is removal of Section 14A of Sikkim Municipalities Act 2007. The particular clause had been inserted in a previous amendment which disallowed political parties from contesting the urban civic body elections.

Discussions and voting on the bill is scheduled in the next Assembly session.

Chief Minister PS Golay, speaking briefly to the media after the one-day session, said the panchayat and municipal elections in Sikkim will henceforth be held in a political party-based manner.

“We did non-party based panchayat elections last time but the public demanded that it will be best if the local bodies’ elections are held party-based. We have taken this step as per the people’s wishes. All the local elections will be party-based,” said the Chief Minister.

The previous civic and rural bodies’ elections held under the SKM government’s first term were not party-based wherein anyone could contest as an independent candidate. No political party could field their candidates or campaign for the candidates.

The last panchayat election in Sikkim was held in November 2022 while the civic polls took place in April 2021.

During the one-day Assembly session, the Chief Minister introduced the Sikkim Motor Vehicles Taxation (Amendment) Bill 2025, and the Sikkim Public Demands Recovery (Amendment) Bill 2025.

Discussions and voting on these bills would be taken up in the next sitting of the Sikkim Legislative Assembly.