Pre-poll process for PMC, PCMC starts; BJP promises 27% tickets for OBCs

“The OBC political reservation has not gone but has been murdered by the MVA government. There is a big conspiracy behind this,” Fadnavis added.

NCP state spokesperson Umesh Patil said, “While we welcome BJP’s move to provide 27 per cent tickets to OBC communities, we also urge all political parties to do justice to the OBC communities. NCP has always given due importance to OBC communities in every election and will continue to do so.”

Patil said BJP’s announcement reflects its attempt to gain OBC votes. “If BJP is serious about OBC communities, the state BJP leaders can approach their own government at the Centre and urge it to make a law in Parliament for giving reservation to OBC communities. But BJP is known for its anti-reservation stand. It was BJP which had pulled down the V P Singh government which wanted to implement the Mandal Commission report,” Patil said.

State Congress president Nana Patole said, “BJP’s announcement is nothing but a lie. BJP goes to any extent to take voters for a ride. Actually, it is BJP and Fadnavis who have damaged the OBC communities politically. It all started with Nagpur Zilla Parishad.”

Meanwhile, Kiran Kurundkar, secretary of SEC, told The Indian Express on Saturday, “We have asked district collectors who administer 25 Zilla Parishads and panchayat samitis to initiate the process of restructuring their wards. At the same time, we have also initiated the election process in municipal corporation areas,” Kiran Kurundkar, secretary, SEC, told The Indian Express on Saturday.

The SEC move comes after directives of the Supreme Court to hold the elections to the local self-government bodies including the municipal corporations without the OBC reservation, earlier this week. Though the SC has asked the SEC to announce elections to the local self-government bodies in two weeks, poll officials said they have initiated the election process which includes ward restructuring, SC, ST reservation and preparation of voter list. Both terms of the PMC and PCMC ended by March 14. The new civic body should have taken charge after that but since elections have been postponed, administrators have been appointed to both the civic bodies.

The SEC said they are currently scrutinising the reports submitted by the election offices of the municipal corporations regarding ward restructuring. “The civic bodies had carried out the delimitation exercise. They had published the draft delimitation plan and invited suggestions and objections from the citizens. The civic election offices had rejected some suggestions and objections and had accepted some of them. We have called civic officials to our office to cross-check the process carried out by them,” Kurundkar said.

PCMC assistant municipal commissioner Balasaheb Kurundkar, who heads the election department said, “When we had received suggestions and objections from citizens to the ward restructuring plan, the Cooperative Commissioner appointed by the SEC had examined them, after which we had submitted our final report to the SEC. We would be going to the SEC office in Mumbai after receiving a call from them to verify our submission.”