A day after all political parties demanded to stay election process until reservation for OBCs in local body polls is resumed, Maharashtra Government on Thursday clarified it holds the identical view.
“State Government is firm on the stand that either the elections should be held on all seats or no election should be held,” said Maharashtra deputy CM Ajit Pawar.
Mr. Pawar said that Supreme Court has not scrapped the State Government ordinance, but stayed elections on OBC reserved seats only. “The judiciary has given different verdict for Maharashtra while similar laws of other States have been upheld. As a Government, we think of all communities. It isn’t justified to hold elections only for general category, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe and omit OBCs,” said Mr. Pawar.
Maharashtra State election commission stayed elections on local body seats reserved for OBCs based on the Supreme Court order against State’s ordinance of giving 27% reservation for OBCs. Political parties have already demanded to stay entire poll process to avoid injustice on OBCs. The State Government will also be filing a review petition in the apex court terming the court order as contradictory.
A total of 106 municipal panchayats, Bhandara and Gondiya zilla parishad and 15 panchayat samitis under these ZP are going for polls on December 21. In addition, by polls for four municipal corporation seats and 7130 vacant seats posts in grampanchayats are also going for polls.
Elections on 23 seats in Bhandara and Gondiya ZP, 45 seats in panchayat samitis, 344 seats in municipal panchayats and one seat in municipal corporation have been stayed.
