Ward formation begins as SEC seeks clarity on OBC quota; polls likely in October-November
The state government is gearing up to initiate the ward formation process, following the Supreme Court’s directive to the State Election Commission (SEC) to hold elections in 687 urban and rural local bodies. These long-delayed polls are now scheduled to take place in October or November.
Speaking to reporters in Pune on Thursday, just before a municipal conclave for commissioners and council chief executives, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis stated, “Elections will be held adhering to the timeline. Our effort is to hold the polls within four months, as directed by the SC. If there’s heavy rain, we may seek an extension of 15 to 20 days.”
Ward Formation Process Begins Following SC Deadline
Following the Supreme Court’s directive to hold local body elections within four months, the State Election Commission (SEC) has initiated the process of ward formation. On May 6, a two-judge bench of the apex court instructed the SEC to notify the polls within four weeks and ensure they are conducted within the stipulated time frame.
State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare said the government has been asked to begin forming wards for all urban and rural bodies set to go to polls. “We have asked the state government to start forming wards for all bodies that are expected to go to the elections. We expect it to be done in 60 to 70 days, after which we will begin the process of the ward-wise reservation which takes another 15 days. We are following the prevailing laws in relation to the number of members per ward, number of the wards in the local bodies, and have asked the government to go align with it. Once the process is completed, we will apprise the apex court in next hearing on September 16,” he said.
Officials confirmed that the process is being carried out in accordance with existing legal provisions regarding the size and structure of wards. Once the ward formation is completed, the next step will be to determine reservation for each ward before the election schedule is announced.
SEC Seeks Clarity on OBC Quota in Local Body Polls
The Supreme Court has said that OBC reservation in upcoming local body elections will follow the pre-2022 norm of a flat 27%. This has led the State Election Commission (SEC) to seek legal clarity on whether the 27% is part of the overall 50% reservation cap.
“We are seeking legal opinion to clear the confusion, but prime facie our interpretation is that it would be up to 27%, with overall reservation not exceeding 50%,” said State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare.
Getting ready for polls
Twenty-nine municipal corporations in the state have no elected bodies and are being governed by administrators for several years. In some corporations, such as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar and Navi Mumbai, the position of commissioners have been vacant for five years, while some other bodies including Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) have been without a mayor for more than three years.
Thirty two of 34 district councils, all 248 municipal councils, 42 of 147 nagar panchayats and 336 of 351 panchayat samitis are governed by administrators.
Another SEC official told HT that formation of wards would be hassle-free because the Mahayuti government in 2022 had changed the previous Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s decision of increasing the wards and number of corporators per wards. “The number of wards and delimitation will be considered as they prevailed in 2017. Barring a few minor changes that arose due to merging of villages or conversion of villages into nagar panchayats, there would be no major changes in the wards’ boundaries,” said the official.
The elections are expected to be held in two phases — one phase each for urban and rural bodies.
Why the delay
The local body elections have been delayed for over five years, because of litigations on various issues such as the OBC quota, government’s decision of taking away SEC’s powers of delimitation to itself, MVA government’s decision of increasing number of wards, among others. The SC is hearing over 22 pending petitions.
In March 2021, while hearing a petition SC told SEC that until a triple test was conducted on the empirical data collected, there would be no OBC quota in the local body polls. Thereafter, elections to five district councils were carried out without the quota, until the Banthia Commission report, following the triple test, was submitted in July 2022. The Banthia Commission ensured quota for each local body based on the population and up to 27%, unlike the flat 27% quota prevailing until then since 1994.
On the other hand, although the Banthia commission, helped SC pave the way for the elections, a slew of other petitions challenging other government amendments were pending before it. The SC had in August 2022 ordered status quo owing to the pending petitions.
Interestingly, the SC order given last week, appears to be contrary to its ruling in March 2021 – it had said then that there will be no OBC quota until the dedicated commission collates empirical data. “The fresh order states that the elections should be conducted without following the empirical data collated by the Banthia Commission,” an official from the urban development department said.
Flip flop of decisions
The petitions before SC were also filed because of the contradictory changes by MVA and the subsequent Mahayuti government. The Uddhav Thackeray government in March 2021, amended the law to take away SEC’s powers of ward formation and passed an ordinance in August 2021 to increase the number of members in urban and rural local bodies based on the projected population. The government also increased the number of members per ward to three for political gains.
With the change in government in June 2022, the then Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti reversed the decision and increased the number of members per ward to four.
👉 Click here to read the latest Gujarat news on TheLiveAhmedabad.com