The five-year term of several local bodies in Maharashtra, including Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), has now ended. Since then, these governing bodies have been under the control of an administrator.
In the Pune Municipal Corporation, the five-year term of the previous elected body ended three years ago, in 2022. Since then, the governing body has been under the control of an administrator.
Various residents and local representatives have been seeking the polls, with complaints about degrading civic amenities flooding the offices.
However, the polls for local bodies in the state are not being conducted due to pending petitions related to civic elections, challenging the Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation in the Supreme Court.
In a disappointing development for those awaiting elections, the hearing scheduled for this month in the Supreme Court will now be held on February 25. This is expected to further delay the local polls, potentially pushing them to after Diwali.
Matter in Apex Court
Supreme Court (SC) deferred the hearing of a slew of petitions related to the local body polls in Maharashtra, on Tuesday.
The five-year term of most municipal corporations, including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), and other local bodies in the state expired in 2022.
In December 2021, the Supreme Court had ruled that reservation for OBCs in local bodies will not be allowed unless the government fulfills the triple test laid down in the apex court’s 2010 order. It had ruled that, until the triple test criteria are fulfilled, the OBC seats will be re-notified as general category seats.
The triple test required the state government to set up a dedicated commission to gather data on the backwardness of OBCs in every local body, to specify the proportion of reservation in each local body in light of the commission’s recommendations, and ensure that such reservation does not exceed 50 percent of the total seats reserved for SC/ST/OBC combined.
