PMC begins collecting data of OBC population in city

The top court had last year withdrawn reservation for OBCs in elections after a petition had challenged it

Pune | June 7, 2022 08:38 PM IST

2 min read

The campaign is initiated under the Balasaheb Thackeray Krishi Vyavsaya Gramin Parivartan. (File)

Keeping hopes alive for those wanting to contest civic polls on seat reserved for Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), on the directives of the state government, has started collecting data of OBC population in the city. The data is likely to be used for preparing empirical data and submitted to the Supreme Court in order to get back the reservation for OBCs in local body elections.

The top court had last year withdrawn reservation for OBCs in elections after a petition had challenged it. The state government had taken various steps to get back the reservation but all were turned down by the court in absence of empirical data for the category. The court has also asked the state government not to delay municipal polls as a number of civic bodies were running in absence of elected bodies and are being governed by administrators appointed by the state government.

“The ward offices in PMC have been asked to collect information on the OBC population in their respective jurisdiction. The civic election department has started preparing the electoral rolls for the forthcoming elections of PMC. Thus, the same staff have been asked to verify the OBC status of the citizens by either meeting them or through telephone call,” said a civic officer.

According to sources in the state government, the exercise of collecting information of OBC population is being carried out mainly to gather data within a short period and submit it to the Supreme Court before the elections are held. If the court permits, there could be a possibility of reservation being restored for OBCs in election, they added.

Of the three stages of election, the first stage of finalising the delimitation and reservation of seats have been almost completed. Now, the second stage of preparing electoral roll on the basis of electoral panel and polling booth has been started.

The state election commission has clarified that January 1 will be the cut off date for deciding the eligibility of elector, which means the person should be of 18 years of age before January 1. However, the enrollment cut off date for the elector is fixed as May 31.

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