Amidst raging politics over the Supreme Court order to conduct local bodies’ polls in Madhya Pradesh without OBC quota, the State Election Commission (SEC) has said that the pending polls are likely to be conducted in June. The SC had ordered the SEC to notify polls within two weeks of the order of May 10.
The state chief election commissioner B.P. Singh, after a meeting of senior officials on Wednesday, said that the commission was ready to conduct the polls immediately. He said that one of the polls (out of three-tier panchayats and urban local bodies) will be conducted by June 12 and both the other polls will be conducted by June end. District collectors (who are district electoral officers) have been issued directives in this regard.
Meanwhile, both Congress and BJP, who have been blaming each other for the cancellation of OBC quota by the Supreme Court, have said that they will give tickets to 27 per cent OBC candidates in the local bodies’ polls.
While MP Congress chief Kamal Nath clearly talked about 27 per cent OBC candidates, BJP chief Vishnu Dutt Sharma said that the party will give even more than 27 per cent seats to OBC candidates based on eligibility and need.
In another development, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan cancelled his proposed foreign visit to the US and the UK for investment promotion, scheduled from March 14, saying that putting up the side of OBCs in the court and protecting their welfare was his priorities at the moment. He reiterated that the state government will file a review petition in the Supreme Court.
Politics, which has been raging on the issue for almost six months now, further intensified in the state after the SC on Tuesday ordered the SEC to go ahead with pending local bodies’ polls, sans OBC quota. The SC had also said that the pro-OBC parties were free to nominate OBC candidates for general category seats.
The BJP leaders blamed the Congress for taking the matter to the court in the first place, which they said, has led the apex court to come out with such an order. The Congress, meanwhile, alleged that the half-baked information presented by the BJP government (vis a vis OBC population/triple-test norms) in the court and its failure to comply to the directive of the apex court led to the cancellation of OBC quota for the local bodies’ polls.
Senior Congress leaders Sajjan Singh Verma, P.C. Sharma and Kamleshwar Patel held a press conference on Wednesday to demand that the government convene a special session of the Assembly to pass a resolution for constitutional amendment for enhanced OBC reservation and send it to the Union government. They said that the BJP government had conspired to get the OBC quota nullified and called it implementation of the hidden agenda of the RSS and the BJP to take away reservation benefits from the deprived sections of the society.
State urban administration minister Bhupendra Singh, however, rejected the demand saying that the Assembly (in December 2021) has already passed a resolution saying that local bodies’ polls won’t be held without OBC reservation.
Also, BJP leaders including Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan continued to reiterate that the government will file a review petition to get the order modified. However, experts feel that there is little chance for the order to be modified as it was a very clear order and the review petition would likely to be dismissed.
Elections to 23,263 three-tier panchayat bodies including 22,709 panchayats, 313 janpad panchayats and five district panchayats and 321 urban local bodies including 16 municipal corporations, 79 municipalities and 223 municipal councils have been pending for around two years.
