Although the Supreme Court has directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to begin the election process in two weeks and hold the local body elections, which are due or overdue, at the earliest, the polls are unlikely to be conducted before September for various reasons.
The incomplete process of the formation of wards, ascertaining the reservation for SC/ST and women, and finalising electoral rolls for each ward will need at least two months. Once it is completed by mid-July, the state will be at the peak of the monsoon during which the elections cannot be held.
The SEC on Friday issued notifications directing 25 district councils and 284 panchayat samitis to commence the pre-poll exercise. Similarly, 208 nagar parishads and eight nagar panchayats have been asked to complete the process of seeking suggestions and objections on the draft ward boundaries finalised by the SEC earlier by May 14 and finalise the boundaries by June 7.
In another notification, 25 district councils and 284 panchayat samitis have been directed to begin the work of superimposing the ward maps with Google Maps and linking electoral data to them. The SEC is expected to issue notifications for resumption of the process for other local bodies, including 20 municipal corporations, early next week.
The SEC typically begins the election process at the formation of wards at least three months before the expiry of the five-year term of local bodies. It had already announced to begin the process in October last year for the municipal corporations and the district councils whose terms were ending in February and March. Simultaneously, it had requested the state government to finalise the rules for the demarcation, take a call on the multi-member ward system and the increase in the wards proportionate to the projected population.
SEC officials said the back and forth by the state government over various decisions, including changing the ward system from single-member wards to multi-member wards, rise in the number of wards in municipal corporations and district councils, and then taking away the powers of the formation of wards from the poll panel, delayed the process.
“The state government had in October decided to introduce a multi-ward system, compelling us to begin our process afresh. Again, in November, the state decided to increase the number of wards in district councils and municipal corporations. In the meantime, the pending cases in the court kept the uncertainty looming large over the quota to the Other Backward Classes [OBCs] making it difficult to draw the reservation. In November, we wrote to the chief secretary giving the state government a deadline to complete the process by month-end,” an official from the SEC, who did not wish to be named, said.
The official said the process of formation of wards for 14 corporations was almost completed in March when the state government decided to take away the powers from the SEC. “We have completed the delimitation for 14 municipal corporations, but the process for the remaining six which are due for elections in the next few months is yet to begin. Similarly, the notification to begin the process for the district councils and panchayat samitis has not been issued as the government framed rules just by the end of February. For 210 urban local bodies we published the draft and suggestions, objections were called for when we stopped the process.”
Even after completing the delimitation, the reservation draw would take a couple of weeks, followed by splitting of the electoral roll and inviting suggestions and objections which would need another two-three weeks, he said.
The officer said the SEC had submitted in the SC that the elections could not be conducted during monsoon and the apex court may not object to it.
Five municipal corporations have been under the rule of administrators for about two years after their term ended in May 2020, while 10 corporations have been ruled by administrators since March. The term of five corporations will end in June-July, while 25 district councils are due for the elections after their terms ended in March.
Chandrakant Bavkar, president, OBC Sangharsh Samanvay Samiti, said, “The state government should be held responsible for the delay in compiling the empirical data. The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi should have immediately started collating the data after coming to power in November 2019. But, it filed a review petition, and appointed the Maharashtra State Backward Classes Commission instead of a dedicated commission. The dedicated Banthia commission was appointed a year after the quota was quashed. The delay is unacceptable.”