Local Body Elections Stalled Further; Supreme Court Sets Next Hearing for February 25
Pune :
Local body elections have not been held in the state for the last few years due to the issue of OBC reservation. In this regard, a hearing took place in the Supreme Court today on the OBC reservation issue. It was expected that the final hearing on this case would be held in the Supreme Court today. However, now the Supreme Court has once again given the next date. Due to this, the local body elections in the state have further been delayed.
The next hearing on the local body elections and OBC reservation case will now be held on February 25. Due to this, the elections for these local bodies will be postponed by another month.
Recently, the state assembly elections took place in the state in November. After that, all political parties have started preparing for the upcoming local body elections in the state. Meanwhile, the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray group has indicated its intention of contesting the Mumbai Municipal Corporation on its own. Accordingly, former Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has started taking meetings of the office bearers in the state. On the other hand, now the local body elections have been delayed.
Notably, the court has not stayed the local body elections in the state. However, the state government had requested the Supreme Court to take a decision on OBC reservation before conducting the elections, whereas, on the other hand, some people have rushed to the court to conduct local body elections.
A few days ago, a BJP workshop was organised in Nagpur. In that workshop, Chief Minister of the state Devendra Fadnavis had said that local body elections would be held in the next three months.
Elections have not been held for four years
Since the last term of most of the local body elections ended in 2021, the administration of these local bodies is currently in the hands of administrators. Currently, there are 29 municipal corporations, 257 municipalities, 26 zilla parishads, and 289 panchayat samitis in the state that are currently looked after by administrators. Efforts have been made to hold elections to these local bodies earlier.
Tushar Mehta argued in the Supreme Court on behalf of the government.
