Taking a stern view of the postponement of the declaration of the reservation roster by the Urban Development (UD) Department for the urban local bodies (ULBs), the State Election Commission (SEC), today stated that UD Dept had no legal mandate to postpone the schedule issued by a constitutional authority. It further directed the UD Dept to withdraw the said directions issued earlier.
The SEC had notified July 11 as the date of declaration of the reservation roster in all 74 urban local bodies comprising municipal corporations, municipal councils and nagar panchayats of the state as their elections are slated to take place by the year end.
The reservation of wards in the ULBs was supposed to be undertaken after delimitation of wards where as per the norms at least 50 per cent wards would be reserved for women besides those for the reserved categories on a rotation basis.
Since it would hit the poll prospects of the existing councillors as their wards could be reserved, a section of councillors and politicians from several places like Solan had taken up the issue with the Chief Minister.
In a bid to delay the publication of reservation roster, the special secretary UD today issued directions to the deputy commissioners (DCs) across the state to postpone the reservation roster by taking the pretext of non-availability of latest data about the number of electors of reserved categories like scheduled caste(SC), scheduled tribe(ST) and other backward classes(OBC) .
The UD also directed the DCs to desist from issuing or implementing the reservation of seats till the updated census data is released much to the relief of the councillors.
Since the census is slated to take place next year, these directions, if implemented, would have either postponed the civic body polls till the new census data was released or would have ensured that no new reservation roster was issued for the ensuing polls.
Taking an exception to these directions, the SEC citing clause (g) of the Article 243P of the Constitution of India read with Section 2(31) of the Himachal Pradesh Municipal Act, 1994, which unambiguously provides that the population of the last census shall be used for reservation, directed the UD to utilize the 2011 census for reservation of seats for the civic body polls.
The SEC secretary Surjeet Singh Rathore also clarified in its notification issued after the UD directions that the direction and control of delimitation of wards, reservation and allotment of sets by rotation vests with the SEC under section 281 of the HPMC, 1994 and section 9 of the said Act while also sending the compliance.
Quick action by the SEC has not only thwarted the state government’s ploy to put on hold the reservation of wards which could have given the ruling Congress an unfair advantage but it has left the government embarrassed for trying to hinder a constitutional body’s electoral work.