The center said the state is considering filing a petition for review with the Supreme Court to grant OBC political reservations to municipalities and municipalities unless they meet the Supreme Court’s triple review criteria. The move comes after the Supreme Court overturned the Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh governments’ recent 27 percent reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in local authorities.
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The ministry also stated that it is mulling filing a review petition with the Supreme Court to enable political reservation of OBCs in local bodies and municipal corporations till the states meet the top court’s triple test requirements.
Setting up a specialised commission to undertake a concurrent rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of backwardness as it relates to local entities within the state is part of the triple test. The second criterion is to indicate the percentage of reservation that must be provided locally according to the commission’s recommendations, and the third is that the reservation should not exceed 50 percent of the seats designated for SCs, STs, and OBCs combined.
The Centre expressed worry over the situation and said it is looking into it thoroughly, taking into consideration the views of all stakeholders, including the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Parliamentary Affairs, Department of Legal Affairs, and Ministry of Home Affairs. The Maharashtra State Election Commission (SEC) has been ordered by the Supreme Court to declare 27 percent of seats in the local government, which were formerly reserved for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), as general category so that the election process may proceed.
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The Supreme Court further ordered the Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission (SEC) to halt the polling process on seats designated for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the local body and re-notify those seats for the general category on Friday. BJP senior party leader Uma Bharti, home to about 70% of the state’s population, said her party Panchayat poll in Madhya Pradesh on Monday was unfair to the OBC without a quota. She encouraged state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to find a mechanism to ensure that the OBCs are represented in these elections.
