Mumbai : deccan express – A new controversy is likely to erupt over the issue of reservations for Other Backward Classes. The Election Commission has decided to conduct the elections on January 18 by allowing general category candidates to contest from seats which had been reserved for OBCs.
The Bharatiya Janata Party has been continuously blaming the MVA government for denying reservations to the OBCs. With the announcement of the elections, the opposition has got a good opportunity to target the state government.
By-elections are going to be held on December 21 for 106 nagar panchayats, two zilla parishads, 15 panchayat samitis and 4,000 gram panchayats. The court had asked the Election Commission to announce its decision about seats reserved for OBCs in seven days.
Elections are going to be held on January 18 by allowing general category candidates to contest from for seats reserved for OBCs. The results of the elections being held on December 21 and January 18 are going to be announced together. Hence, candidates will have to wait till January 19, 2022 for the results.
State Election Commissioner UPS Madan said that as per the schedule announced by the State Election Commission, elections were going to be held on December 21 for 106 nagar panchayats, Bhandara and Gondia zilla parishads and 15 panchayat samitis.
Along with this, elections for 4 vacancies in municipal corporations and 7,130 vacancies in 4,554 gram panchayats were also slated for December 21.
As per the orders of the Supreme Court given on December 6, the election process for OBC seats everywhere had been stopped. The election process for other seats is going on smoothly.
As per the decision of the SC given on December 15, a new election schedule has been announced by dereserving seats reserved for OBCs. A lottery will be held to determine the number of seats to be reserved for women.
Election will be held on January 18, 2022 to fill these seats with general category candidates. The election for remaining seats will be held on December 21 but the counting will be held on January 19.
The state government had filed a plea which wanted the SC to give instructions to the Centre to provide the empirical data, but during the hearing held on Wednesday, the SC rejected it.
Meanwhile, in February 2022, elections for 18 municipal corporations are going to be held including cities like Mumbai, Thane, Ulhasnagar, Bhiwandi-Nizampur, Panvel, Mira-Bhayandar, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune Solapur, Nashik, Malegaon, Parbhani, Nanded-Waghala, Latur, Amravati, Akola, Nagpur and Chandrapur.
Leaders of all parties have become active in view of these forthcoming elections.