The Uttar Pradesh cabinet has approved amendments to the Nagar Nigam and Nagar Palika Acts to incorporate suggestions offered by the Backward Classes Commission in its report so that local body elections could be held as per the guidelines of the commission.

An ordinance regarding these amendments will be issued soon.

The approval was given in a cabinet meeting held here on Wednesday.

Urban Development and Energy Minister AK Sharma said that the commission had suggested guidelines for local body elections for which Nagar Nigam Act and Nagar Palika Act needed to be amended. He said the state cabinet gave the approval to bring those amendments in the Nagar Nigam Act and Nagar Palika Act.

“An ordinance regarding the amendments would be issued soon,” Sharma told reporters.

He said that the state government had assured the Supreme Court that the process for local body elections would start within two days and today, the ball had been set rolling in this direction.

The minister said a provisional notification regarding local body elections was issued on December 5 as the municipal elections in Uttar Pradesh were to be held in January. “After this, some petitions were filed in the High Court and the court ordered that the reservation process be investigated by forming a dedicated commission to determine the reservation of Backwards,” Sharma said.

He further said that the order of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court came on December 27 and the state government formed a five-member ‘Uttar Pradesh State Local Bodies Dedicated Backward Classes Commission’ on December 28, chaired by Justice (Retired) Ram Avtar Singh.

The other members of the commission were Chob Singh Verma (retired IAS officer) Mahendra Kumar (retired IAS officer), Santosh Kumar Vishwakarma ( retired higher judicial services officer, and Brijesh Kumar Soni, also a retired higher judicial services officer.

The minister also stated that the state government was committed to providing complete reservation to the OBC category in local body elections and therefore the state government did not waste time and constituted the commission so that demographic representation of OBCs could be determined.

“The chief minister has time and again said that through the recommendations of the commission, his government would ensure that the benefits of reservation are provided to the OBCs on the basis of guidelines of triple-test set by the Supreme Court,” the minister said.

As the municipal elections were to be held in January, the tenure of all the municipal bodies, including Lucknow Municipal Corporation, have come to an end. Elections are to be held in 17 municipal corporations, 200 municipal councils and 517 nagar panchayats.