Hours after the Supreme Court asked Maharashtra’s State Election Commission (SEC) to notify the local body polls within four weeks and complete it within four months, the ruling BJP-led MahaYuti on Tuesday announced that it would contest the polls as alliance, even as political parties welcomed the apex court’s order on holding polls as per the existing OBC reservations.
The crucial apex court ruling has paved the way for the SEC holding elections to the 29 Municipal Corporations, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), 29 Zilla Parishads and 500-odd local bodies in the state owing to a litigation over reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
Talking to media persons at Chondi in Ahilyanagar (known earlier as Ahmednagar) district, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said: “We are happy that the Supreme Court has asked us (SEC) to hold elections within four months. We welcome it
wholeheartedly. We will request the State Election Commission to start preparations for conducting elections for the civic bodies”.
Fadnavis, who was accompanied by deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde of the Shinde Shiv Sena and Ajit Pawar of the NCP (AP), that the ruling MahaYuti would contest the local body polls as an alliance. “We (comprising the BJP, Shinde Sena and NCP (AP) will contest the elections as MahaYuti. There may be some changes here and there. But, as a policy decision, we would go to polls an alliance, Fadnavis said.
The Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising Shiv Sena (UBT), Congress and NCP ( Sharad Pawar) and other parties also welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to give a go-ahead to the much-delayed local body polls
Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal said that the SC ruling had paved the way for the conduct of the long-pending local body polls.
“The Maharashtra government should not find any escape route to delay them any further,” Sakpal said.
Mumbai Congress President and MP Prof Vrsha Gaikwad said: “We welcome the Supreme Court order The people of Maharashtra deserve to choose their own public representatives at the local level instead of being governed by administrators.”
Thanking the apex court for ordering the local body polls in the state, NCP (SP) national spokesperson Clyde Crasto said: “Three years of administrative rule has made a mess of our local bodies and inconvenienced citizens who did not have their own elected voices. Now that the SC has given a go ahead for the local body polls, we hope that the SEC conducts the elections in the stipulated time and gives back the citizens their representative rights”.
Welcoming the SC order, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s Mumbai president Preeti Sharma Menon said: “We stand for clean politics and a new political culture. We are prepared to go to Maharashtra’s masses to seek a mandate in our favour, to deliver the people from the mess that Maharashtra’s governance has become”.
Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court directed the Maharashtra’s SEC to hold local body elections in Maharashtra, reserving seats for OBC as existed prior to the 2022 J.K. Banthia commission.
Earlier in July 2022, the apex court had accepted the recommendations of the Jayant Banthia Commission to apply 27 per cent OBC reservations in the local body elections in Maharashtra, and directed that elections for the local bodies in the state be notified in the next two weeks.
The Jayant Kumar Banthia Commission was set up by the Maharashtra government in March 2022 to examine the question of OBC reservation in the local bodies. The commission recommended 27 per cent representation for the OBCs within the total 50 per cent reservation ceiling.