WITH THE Other Backward Classes reservation issue pending in the Supreme Court (SC), the Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday said it was waiting for the outcome of the apex court hearing on January 17 before deciding on further course of action for holding elections to various local bodies, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
Officials from the State Election Commission said they are carrying out the internal exercise of delimitation of ward boundaries of the local bodies in the state that will go to polls in the next few months.
“We are carrying out our internal exercise and one round of submission of the draft ward boundaries has been completed. At the same time, we are also waiting to see the outcome of the hearing before the SC on January 17 and the petitions filed before the Bombay High Court. By that time, we may complete our internal exercise on draft ward boundaries. Subsequently, we will take a review of things and will decide on it,” Kiran Kurundkar, secretary of SEC, told The Indian Express.
OBC reservation will be a key issue in the election to the 14 municipal corporations and the 26 zilla parishads that are likely to be held in the next few months.
Officials from the SEC said that apart from the OBC reservation issue, the Bombay High Court is also hearing petitions that have challenged the increase in the number of municipal wards in Mumbai and the multi-member ward system introduced in municipal corporations except for Mumbai.
“There will be clarity on these petitions soon. Meantime, the local bodies will submit another draft of ward boundaries this week and it will be evaluated by the commission,” said an official.
The official further said after ward boundaries are approved, it will be put before the public for suggestions and objections before being finalised.
In March last year, the Supreme Court had stayed elections on OBC seats in Maharashtra, and asked the government to fulfil the triple test before notifying the seats reserved for the OBC category. The SC’s triple test includes setting up a dedicated commission for collecting empirical data on the OBC population, specifying the proportion of reservation and ensuring that the cumulative share of reserved seats does not breach 50 per cent of total seats.
While the state government set up the dedicated commission for OBC data and gave up to 27 per cent reservation through an ordinance promulgated in September, eventually passing the bill in the assembly last month, the Supreme Court had stayed civic polls to 27 per cent OBC seats in December, observing that the 27% OBC reservation could not have been implemented without setting up a commission and without collecting data regarding the inadequacy of representation in local bodies.