Maharashtra govt passes bills to postpone civic elections sans OBC quota

In a major political development the Maharashtra Legislature on Monday unanimously passed two bills to defer the upcoming elections to the civic and local bodies till the OBC quotas are restored in the stateThe two bills are the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act the Maharashtra Municipal Councils Nagar Panchayats amp Industrial Townships Amendment Bill 2022 and the Maharashtra Gram Panchayats Act 1959 and the Maharashtra Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samitis Amendment Bill 2022Under these amendments the Maharashtra State Election Commission SECs powers to delimit and fix the wards is proposed to be cancelled and the government shall be empowered to decide delimitation of wards and fix the number of members in these bodiesThe SEC will decide the poll schedules for the civic and local bodies elections in consultation with the state governmentWith the new amendments a majority of the civic bodies whose tenures are ending will be handed over to Administrators who will govern till the elections are heldThe development came after the Supreme Court on March 3 rejected the Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commissions interim report recommending restoration of the 27 per cent political reservations to the OBC communities proving a setback to the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi MVA government of Shiv SenaNationalist Congress PartyCongressThe move supported by the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party assumes significance as 15 top civic bodies including BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation BMC 25 Zilla Parishads and 232 Municipal Councils were slated to go for elections shortlyThe bills are likely to get the Governors assent immediately considering the interests of the OBCs and since the ruling and Oppositoin have also jointly supported itWith the state getting the powers to delimit and form wards it will help it collect the empirical data on the political backwardness of OBCs that is mandatory to restore the quotas for the communities in the local bodies electionsThe process already underway for municipal corporations and district councils has already led to an increase in the number of wards due to the rise in populations in the past decade and a similar exercise was carried out in adjoining Madhya PradeshDeputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar said last week that the local bodies elections shall be postponed by three months to enable complete the compilation of the empirical date in the format laid down by the SC and till then the local bodies shall be handed over to AdministratorsRuling MVA leaders including NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase and Shiv Senas Kishore Tiwari have welcomed the government move saying they are committed from the beginning to ensure quotas for the OBCsHowever the Aam Aadmi Partys Mumbai Working President Ruben Mascarenhas slammed the MVA decision to curtail the SECs powers and termed it as a dark hour for Dr BR Ambedkars vision of a free and fair electoral democracy with equity in social developmentThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever