The Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a resolution stating that no panchayat election will be held in the State without reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). This comes even as the nomination process for the first phase of the three-phase panchayat polls has begun. The elections are scheduled to take place on January 6, January 28 and February 16 next year.
The resolution was proposed by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan amid din in the House, after the Question Hour session got disrupted due to three adjournments following uproar over the OBC reservation issue.
Leader of the Opposition Kamal Nath later said the resolution has been brought two days after the Congress raised the demand.
On December 17, the Supreme Court had directed the State Election Commission to stay the poll process on seats reserved for OBCs in the local body polls and to re-notify them as general category ones due to a lack of empirical data on OBC backwardness. The SC’s directive came after Congress leader Manmohan Nagar, president of the Bhopal zila panchayat, approached it pleading that the State Government violated the provisions on reservation rotation and delimitation for panchayat polls.
