Parties hail SC ruling on Maharashtra local body polls; CM says Mahayuti will contest as 1 unit

Mumbai, May 6 (PTI) Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday welcomed the Supreme Court's direction to the State Election Commission (SEC) to hold the long-pending local body elections within four months, and said the ruling Mahayuti bloc will contest the polls jointly.

Opposition parties like the Congress, the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also hailed the SC ruling.

Except for a few places, the BJP-led Mahayuti, which also consists of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), will contest the local body elections as one unit across the state, Fadnavis maintained.

He also said the Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservation will apply in these elections.

"We are happy that the Supreme Court has asked us (SEC) to hold elections within four months. We welcome it wholeheartedly. We will request the State Election Commission to start preparations for conducting elections for the civic bodies," the CM noted.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the SEC to notify local body polls in Maharashtra within four weeks. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh said the contentious issue of OBC reservation in local body polls will be as it existed prior to the 2022 Banthia Commission report.

The top court accepted the commission report which recommended census to fix exact data on OBCs and reserve 27 per cent seats for the category in the local body polls. The bench asked the SEC to conclude these polls in four months.

The SC order comes after a prolonged delay in conducting elections for urban local bodies, including the cash- ich Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), which has been functioning without elected representatives for more than three years. In the case of 27 other municipal corporations, the delay ranges between three and eight years.

Maharashtra Congress president Harshwardhan Sapkal noted the SC ruling has paved the way for holding the long-delayed local body polls.

"The state government should not find any escape route to delay them any further," he emphahsised.

Kishori Pednekar, a Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and former Mumbai mayor, asserted her party was ready for the polls "We are ready for the polls. If the court has decided then the government must hold the polls," Pednekar said.

Another Sena (UBT) leader said considering that the next four months will coincide with the south-west monsoon, the polls can be held in the last week of September and first week of October.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also welcomed the top court order on holding polls. Preeti Sharma Menon, Mumbai president of the AAP, said the ruling is a much-needed reinstatement of derailed democracy.

Menon criticised the current state of governance in civic bodies, saying, "The BJP is presiding over organised loot in the BMC and other 27 municipal corporations in Maharashtra." Fixed deposits of the BMC, whose budget for the financial year 2025-26 stood at Rs 74,427 crore, have depleted substantially, the AAP leader claimed.

She alleged that in the absence of elected representatives, lower-level bureaucracy in civic bodies had become unaccountable.

"The lower bureaucracy has gone rogue, there is no priority for civic grievance redressal, and people have nowhere to go," Menon pointed out.

Calling the ongoing administration of civic bodies a "proxy rule" by the state government, Menon argued, "It is a crying shame that local bodies have been functioning without public representation. Administrators directly answerable to the Chief Minister have usurped powers meant for elected representatives." Menon stressed the AAP is prepared to contest the elections and offer what she described as a political alternative and solution to the governance issues in Maharashtra. PTI ND PR RSY

Source: PTI