Maharashtra govt to request SEC to either hold local body polls with OBC quota or postpone them

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The Maharashtra cabinet has decided to approach the State Election Commission for deferring the December 21 polls to local bodies till Other Backward Classes data is collected by the State Backward Class Commission (SBCC).

Hours earlier the Supreme Court had directed the poll body to notify 27 per cent of seats in the local bodies, which were reserved for OBCs, as a general category so that the poll process can continue. "The elections to local bodies, if held as per the schedule, should be conducted with the OBC political reservation. And if not, they should be postponed till the OBC data is collected," Maharashtra Food and Civil Supplies Minister Chhagan Bhujbal told reporters after attending the cabinet meeting.

He said a secretary-level official should be specially appointed to coordinate with the SBCC to complete the collection of data at the earliest. A budgetary allocation for this purpose will be approved in the supplementary demands that will be tabled in the upcoming winter session of the state legislature. Earlier in the day, a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and CT Ravikumar of Supreme Court, which was hearing an application filed by the Maharashtra government seeking modification of last week order, directed the SEC to issue a fresh notification for the 27 per cent seats within a week.

The bench said it is not possible to countenance the arguments that without complying with the triple test, which is required to be followed before provisioning such reservation for OBC category, the state authority or SEC can be permitted to notify the seats for OBC in any local bodies. Notably, after the Supreme Court stayed the local body elections on seats where there is the reservation of up to 27 per cent for the OBCs on December 6, the Maharashtra State Election Commission had said that the polls to ZPs and panchayat samitis on all seats, except for those reserved for OBCs, will be held as per the schedule on December 21.

Maharashtra State Election Commissioner UPS Madan had said that the poll body will take action regarding the un-polled seats as per the next orders of the apex court.

On Wednesday, Maharashtra PWD Minister Ashok Chavan said the quota for Marathas and OBCs was adversely impacted due to the ''negative attitude'' of the Centre regarding reservations.

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Speaking to reporters, Chavan, who heads the cabinet sub-committee on the Maratha quota, expressed unhappiness over the Supreme Court order. "The Centre did not cooperate with the state government to protect the OBC quota. The Centre was not ready to share the empirical data on OBCs and also to not relax the 50 per cent limit on overall reservations. This implies that the government doesn't want to protect reservations,'' he alleged. If the Centre had relaxed the 50 per cent cap on reservations (set up by the apex court), in the monsoon session of Parliament, the Maratha quota could have been saved, the former chief minister said.

"This would have ensured that there are a few hurdles in the way of political reservation for OBCs. Besides, the process of restoring the Muslim quota would have become easier," Chavan said. The Maharashtra government had appealed in the top court that the polls to local bodies be held either by keeping the OBC quota intact or be postponed by three months, but the plea wasn't accepted, he said.

"This issue was discussed in the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. The state government will approach the SEC," he said. The elections are scheduled to be held on December 21 in 104 Zilla Parishad seats and 210 Panchayat Samiti seats in Bhandara and Gondia along with 1,802 seats in 106 Nagar Panchyats and four seats in municipal corporations across the state.

Another 7,000 seats from 4,500 Gram Panchayats are also going to poll on December 21. A total of 413 seats from Zilla Parishads, Panchayat Samitis, Nagar Panchayats and Municipal Corporations, besides a few hundred more in Gram Panchayats are reserved for OBCs in these elections.

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