UP govt forms five-member panel for OBC quota survey in civic polls
Hours after the High Court's order, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that his government would set up a commission for it and that the civic elections would be held only after reserving seats for the OBCs.
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Allahabad High Court. (File photo) A day after the Allahabad High Court ordered the holding of urban local body polls without giving reservation to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), the Uttar Pradesh government on Wednesday constituted a five-member commission to carry out a survey to ensure that the benefits of the reservation are provided to the OBCs on the basis of the “triple test” as mandated by the Supreme Court.
The High Court, in its ruling on Tuesday, had said that until the “triple test conditions” are completed in all respects by the state government, no reservation for the OBCs should be provided in the urban local body polls.
The “triple test” requires the state to set up a commission to conduct a “rigorous empirical inquiry” into the nature and implications of the backwardness qua local bodies; to specify the proportion of reservation required so as not to fall foul of over breadth; and in any case such reservation shall not exceed 50 per cent of the total seats reserved for SCs/STs/OBCs taken together.
Hours after the High Court’s order, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that his government would set up a commission for it and that the civic elections would be held only after reserving seats for the OBCs.
On Wednesday, the state Urban Development Department in a notification said the five-member commission, named Pichhda Varg Ayog, will be headed by Justice (retired) Ram Avtar Singh. The remaining four members of the commission are Chob Singh Verma, Mahendra Kumar, both retired IAS officers, and former additional law advisers Santosh Kumar Vishwakarma and Brajesh Kumar Soni.
“This commission has been constituted with the purpose of working on OBC reservation in the local bodies. All the members of the commission are OBCs,” said a government official, adding the tenure of the chairman and members of the commission will be for six months from the date of assuming charge.
The government has also decided to file an appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court’s order. “The government will file an appeal in the Supreme Court after constituting the commission,” said an official.
The Opposition parties have blamed the BJP government in the state for the High Court’s decision, accusing the ruling party of “conspiring to end the reservation”.
“The BJP government did not present the facts before the court and now it has been forced to say that a triple test will be done. Why this delay? The BJP is doing all this knowingly,” alleged Samajwadi Party’s UP unit chief Naresh Uttam Patel.
SP chief Akhilesh Yadav continued his attack on the government on Wednesday and tweeted, “Trying to end reservation is the sinister conspiracy of the BJP’s negative politics.”
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati also attacked the government over the High Court’s verdict.
Apna Dal (S) working president Ashish Patel, a minister in the BJP-led government, said on Tuesday that elections without the OBC reservation were “not fair from any point of view”.
With PTI
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