The local body elections in Maharashtra may not be held till July as the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to complete the pre-election process and conduct the polls wherever possible during monsoon, especially where rainfall was low.
The decision comes as a relief to the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government that wants to delay the polls so that the reservation to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) could be restored and they could avoid a backlash from the community, which makes up nearly 52% of the state’s population.
The pre-election process, which includes delimitation of wards, reservation of seats (without OBC quota), and finalisation of the voters’ list, would be completed by June-end for municipal corporations and by July-end for zilla parishads, SEC officials said.
Generally, it rains across the state in July-August and it is not clear whether the SEC will be able to hold the elections in these two months. The officials said they would consult the India Meteorological Department (IMD) after the pre-poll process was completed.
Through an affidavit filed on May 11, the SEC informed the apex court that it would hold the local body polls in two-three phases after monsoon. The elections to the 20 municipal corporations could be conducted in September-October, while 25 district councils, 284 panchayat samitis, and 2,000-odd gram panchayats could go to the polls in October-November, it said. The fresh schedule was submitted by the SEC before the SC in response to its May 4 directives to begin the pre-election process within two weeks.
The SC on Tuesday refused to permit any blanket deferment of elections to the 2,486 local bodies by September-October in view of the approaching monsoon but allowed them to complete the pre-poll process.
A bench of justices A M Khanwilkar, A S Oka, and C T Ravikumar said, “Entire Maharashtra is not monsoon affected. Wherever it is impossible and where monsoon is an impediment, we will permit you. But your application gives an impression that you want to issue a notification for holding the entire polls by September.”
UPS Madan, state election commissioner, said they were yet to receive the written order from the SC but going by the oral observations, it seemed that the apex court had allowed them to complete the pre-election process.
“The SC has accepted our scheduled preparations for the local body polls. It, however, has directed us to conduct the elections where there is no problem instead of not holding them across the state. It has asked us to make the decision depending on the weather conditions,” Madan said.
Following the top court order, the SEC would complete the pre-election process and then decide on holding the polls, he said. “The pre-poll process for 14 municipal corporations and zilla parishads are likely to be completed by June-end and July-end respectively. After this, we will decide upon holding the polls by taking weather inputs from state officials as well as the IMD. It means the polls for different local bodies will be held on different dates.”
The 14 municipal corporations are Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan-Dombivali, Vasai-Virar, Ulhasnagar, Pune, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Nashik, Kolhapur, Solapur, Nagpur, Akola and Amravati.
