Maharashtra local body polls to be held as per schedule on Dec 21 sans OBC seats: State election commission

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The Maharashtra State Election Commission on Tuesday said elections to ZPs and panchayat samitis on all seats except for those reserved for OBCs will be held as per the schedule on December 21, a day after the Supreme Court stayed the local body elections on seats where there is the reservation of up to 27 per cent for the Other Backward Classes (OBC).

"The Supreme Court stayed polls on seats reserved for OBCs. We will take action regarding the un-polled seats as per the next orders of the apex court," Maharashtra State Election Commissioner UPS Madan said.

The local body polls in Maharashtra are scheduled to be held on December 21 this year. Over 400 seats reserved for OBCs out of the total 1,200 seats will now have to wait for the next orders of the apex court.

The election schedule was announced as per the directives of the Bombay High Court, Madan said.

In its order, the apex court had made it clear that the election process for the other seats, except reserved for OBCs, in Maharashtra would continue.

Also read: Maharashtra: Supreme Court stays 27 per cent OBC quota in local body polls

The top court passed the order while hearing two pleas, including the one assailing the provisions inserted/amended through an Ordinance permitting reservation for the category of backward class of citizens up to 27 per cent uniformly throughout Maharashtra in the concerned local bodies.

"As a result, the State Election Commission shall desist from proceeding with the Election Programme already notified in respect of reserved seats for ‘OBC category only', in the concerned local bodies," said a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and C T Ravikumar.

As per the schedule, 106 nagar panchayats, zilla parishads of Bhandara and Gondia and 15 panchayat samitis under them, bypolls for four vacant seats in four municipal corporations and 7,130 seats in 4,554 gram panchayats will be held on December 21, Madan said.

In March this year, the apex court had said that reservation in favour of OBCs in concerned local bodies in Maharashtra cannot exceed aggregate 50 per cent of the total seats reserved for Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and OBCs took together.

The apex court, while reading down section 12(2)(c) of the Maharashtra Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act 1961 which provided 27 per cent reservation for persons belonging to the backward class, had also quashed the notifications issued by the state election commission in 2018 and 2020 to the extent of providing reservation of seats in concerned local bodies for OBCs.

It had referred to the triple condition noted in the Constitution bench verdict of 2010, including setting up a dedicated commission to conduct a contemporaneous rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness qua local bodies within the state.

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