‘Don’t hold local body elections sans OBC quota’

MUMBAI: The Maharashtra assembly on Monday passed a resolution recommending that the state election commission (SEC) should not hold local body elections until such time that reservation for other backward classes (OBCS) is restored. The resolution moved by the state assembly was unanimously cleared by the lower house as the opposition too supported the move.

The resolution comes on the back of the SEC declaring elections to 567 seats in local bodies reserved for OBCS on January 18. Earlier on December 21, the SEC held elections to 1,533 seats in local bodies not reserved for OBCS.

Moving the resolution in the lower house, deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar said, “Going by the existing provisions, the OBC community has 27% reservation in local bodies but the SEC has declared holding polls without OBC reservation. It is necessary to provide them representation and the SEC’S decision will deprive them of representation. Considering this, the assembly recommends that the SEC should not hold local body elections without OBC reservation.”

Leader of the opposition Devendra Fadnavis said that they supported the resolution and that it should be passed unanimously. Consequently, the resolution was approved by voice vote. Before Maharashtra, the Madhya Pradesh assembly passed a similar resolution. On December 23, the assembly passed a resolution that elections should not be held in the state without reservation.

In the wake of the resolution passed by the state legislature, former advocate general, Shreehari Aney, said that the SEC is an independent body and will have to conduct elections as per rules. “The SEC is ultimately governed by law because it is independent of the state. It will therefore have to abide by the requirement of law. What is being held (by the Supreme Court) is until a certain procedure is completed, you cannot make a reservation in local bodies. Reservation can be provided only after completing the required process so the commission would need to abide by those directives and it would need to tell the state government that until those procedural requirements are complied with, the state cannot make reservation for local bodies,” Aney said.

“As far as the elections are concerned, it is the SEC’S job to conduct and they will be conducted subject to the limitation of OBC reservation. In other words, non-obc seats will have to be filled out. The election will have to be conducted excluding the OBC seats,” he added.

While Ulhas Bapat, a constitutional expert, said that the resolution passed by the state assembly cannot be implemented and elections cannot be deferred once the five-year duration of the legislature is completed. It has no legal standing and will be treated as a request. “The resolution cannot be implemented because the duration of the local bodies cannot be extended and elections have to be conducted once they complete five years,” Bapat told.