NEW DELHI/BHOPAL: The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission (SEC) to notify local elections in the state within two weeks without the Other Backward Classes (OBC) quota.
While submitting a report of State Backward Caste Welfare Commission, the MP government had argued before the apex court that 35 per cent reservation be given to OBCs in the three-tier panchayat and urban local body polls.
There can be no OBC reservation until the triple test exercise mentioned in a 2010 Constitution bench verdict is completed properly, the bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, AS Oka, and CT Ravikumar said.
“We direct the SEC by way of interim order to issue election programme without any further delay on the basis of the wards as per the delimitation done in the concerned local bodies when the elections had become due consequent to expiry of five-year term of the outgoing elected body or before coming into force of the impugned Amendment Act(s),” it said.
Elections to over 23,200 local bodies have not been held in MP since 2019-2020.
The conduct of elections for installing a newly elected body to take over from the outgoing elected representative is explicitly provided for by the Constitution, the SC said after hearing petitions challenging the validity of provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Municipal Act, the Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Raj Avam Gram Swaraj Adhiniyam, and Section 29 of the Madhya Pradesh Municipalities Act as being arbitrary and usurping the powers and independence of the SEC.
The matter will now be heard on July 12. In Bhopal, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan said it would first go through the details of the order.
“We’ll then file review petition, praying the court to allow holding the local bodies (rural and urban) polls with OBC reservation,” Chouhan said.
OBC is the biggest chunk of voters in MP with the BJP’s three CMs — Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur and Chouhan — coming from this segment.
The maximum percentage of OBC voters are housed in Gwalior-Chambal, Bundelkhand, Vindhya and Central MP regions. Around 100 out of the 230 seats in MP Assembly have significant OBC voter presence.
Congress leader Kamal Nath blamed the Chouhan government for failing to timely complete the process of triple test as ordered by the SC and submitting a half-baked report.