COLOMBO, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan election authorities said here Monday that local council elections scheduled to be held on March 30 for councils in the war battered regions in the north and east have been postponed till September 30.

    The six month's delay was announced due to difficulties in holding the elections stated by the respective district election returning officers, election officials here said.

    Accordingly elections for some 45 councils in the north and a part of the eastern province will not be held on March 30.

    An administration for one of the councils out of the total 46 has already been appointed uncontested.

    However 31 councils in the eastern provinces's Ampara and Trincomalee districts will have elections as scheduled on 30 March,officials added.

    Local elections totalling 330 were to go to polls in the entire country and 77 of them are in the north and east regions.

    Ever since the election was announced the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) backed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) demanded the postponement of the poll citing unstable security situation in the region.

    They even represented matters to the President Mahinda Rajapakse calling for a postponement of the poll.

    Meanwhile the authorities said the polling in the postal vote for the March 30 election had gone without any incident Monday, the first of two days for postal voting.

    The postal vote for some 23 councils did not take place as elections for those have been affected by court proceedings, officials said. Enditem