UP issues draft notification for quota in urban local body polls

Asked about the declaration of local body polls in the state, the minister said, “We will finish our work and give (the final list) to the State Election Commission. It will be up to it to declare the polls.”

Out of the 17 posts of Mayor, 199 of chairpersons of Nagar Palika Parishad and 534 Nagar Panchayats – which add up to 760 total seats – 205 posts have been reserved for OBCs, 288 for women of all categories, 110 for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and two for Scheduled Tribes (STs), according to the new notification.

It may be mentioned that in the December 5 notification, which was challenged in the Allahabad High Court and subsequently, the matter reached the Supreme Court, 255 seats were reserved for women, 205 for OBCs, 102 for SCs and 1 seat for STs.

While the number of seats for OBC remains to be the same (205), there has been an increase in the seats reserved for women from 255 to 288 as per the new notification. While SC seats have increased by eight, ST seats have increased by one.

The decision of the Allahabad High Court to hold the civic polls without giving quota to the OBCs since the government had not fulfilled the triple-test criteria, was challenged by the UP government in the Supreme Court.

On the direction of the Supreme Court, the state government constituted a five-member panel to look into the backwardness criteria for defining reservation among other things as the triple-test requirement.

The triple test requires setting up a commission to hold a “rigorous empirical inquiry” into the nature of the “backwardness” in the context of the local bodies, specifying the proportion of reservation based on the commission’s recommendations and ensuring that it does not exceed the overall 50-per cent quota limit.

Following the commission’s report, which was submitted to the government, the Supreme Court allowed holding the elections in the three-tier body with OBC quota.

“In its findings, the commission observed that Uttar Pradesh is a big state and therefore in many places, people complained that a similar type of reservation has continued for years since the state was taken as one unit to decide reservation in all the three tiers. Therefore, regional criteria for the reservation was suggested,” minister Sharma said.

On Wednesday, the state Cabinet also decided to amend two laws – the Uttar Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act and the Uttar Pradesh Nagar Palika Act – and cleared a draft ordinance and sent it to Governor Anandiben Patel for promulgation.

The government said the amendments were required to incorporate the recommendations of the quota panel. After the ordinance was promulgated, the state government issued the draft notification for reservation and has also sought objections as per the required process.

“Changes have been made through the ordinance based on the recommendation of the Commission… Therefore, the elections of Nagar Nigam, Nagar Palika Parishad and Nagar Panchayats, which were conducted considering the state as one unit since the Acts were enacted would not be considered at the state level for municipal corporations, at the divisional level for Nagar Palika Parishad and at the district level for Nagar Panchayats,” the minister said.

Among the major changes as recommended by the Commission, includes deciding the rotation of reservation for Mayor seats at the state level, for Nagar Palika Parishad at the divisional level and for Nagar Panchayats at the district level.

In the previous reservation pattern, all the regions of the state did not get uniform representation, but they would now, Sharma said, adding that there were 39 districts which did not have SC reservations in Nagar Panchayats. “This has now been reduced to just 14 districts after following the recommendations of the Commission. Also, while there was just one seat reserved for Scheduled Tribes, it has now been increased to two. In Nagar Panchayats, reservation for women has increased from 182 to 209,” Sharma added.

Similarly, in Nagar Palika Parishad, Devipatan Division did not have any representation of OBCs. However, after the amendment, now all the divisions have representation of OBCs.

For Mayor posts, while the number of reserved seats in each category remains the same, there has been a reshuffle in the categories.

The mayor seat of Agra has been reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC woman), Jhansi for SC, Shahjahanpur and Firozabad (OBC women), Saharanpur and Meerut for OBC, and Lucknow, Kanpur and Ghaziabad for women, according to the draft notification.

Eight mayor seats of Varanasi, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Bareilly, Moradabad, Gorakhpur, Ayodhya and Mathura-Vrindavan will be unreserved.

“Under the current system, every section is getting appropriate representation in all the regions… 27 per cent reservation for the OBCs and 33 per cent reservation for women… We are also moving towards gender justice,” said Sharma.