UP govt issues draft notification with reservation for OBC and SC

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday issued a provisional list of reserved seats for mayors of municipal corporations, and chairpersons of municipal councils and nagar panchayats for the three-tier urban elections.

“The draft notification has been issued for the reserved seats. Objections have been sought on the list of reserved seats within seven days,” Urban Development Minister AK Sharma told reporters here.

The list has been issued for reserved seats for mayors of 17 municipal corporations, and chairpersons of municipal councils and nagar panchayats. The government has sought objections to the draft within seven days, till April 6.

The state cabinet had on Wednesday approved an ordinance for the amendment of the Uttar Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act and the Nagar Palika Act. Governor Anandiben Patel on Thursday gave assent to the ordinance.

Asked about 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 upto it to declare the polls.”

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

The minister said eight mayor seats of Varanasi, Prayagraj, Aligarh, Bareilly, Moradabad, Gorakhpur, Ayodhya and Mathura-Vrindavan will be unreserved.

On March 27, the Supreme Court had directed the State Election Commission to issue a notification within two days for holding the urban local body polls with the provision for reservation of seats for OBCs.

A notification for holding local body polls was issued earlier, on December 5 last year, but several petitions were filed in the Allahabad High Court against the move. The court then ordered the government to constitute a dedicated commission to identify the criteria for backwardness in an area for reservation.

A five-member commission headed by Justice (retired) Ram Avatar Singh was formed on December 28.