Express News Service
LUCKNOW: Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court of India giving its nod, on Monday, to conduct urban civic polls in Uttar Pradesh with OBC reservation. The Supreme Court also ordered the State Election Commission to issue election notification within two days.
Significantly, the Supreme Court passed the order while perusing the report of the Backward Commission submitted by Yogi government on March 15. The court while hearing the UP government’s plea accepted the commission’s report and asked the state government to go ahead with the civic polls.
The state government had constituted the five-member commission in compliance of apex court order to recommend the quota provisions for OBCs in UP Urban Civic Polls. The Backward Commission visited 75 districts to conduct the survey to ascertain the status of various OBC in urban civic areas. It submitted the report to the UP government on March 9.
Reacting to the SC order, CM Yogi said that the government was committed to OBC reservation and took all measures towards making provisions for OBC quota in Urbana civic bodies within the time frame given by the Supreme Court. He said that following the rules of reservation in a lawful manner, the Uttar Pradesh government was committed to conduct urban body elections in a time-bound manner.
It may be recalled that a petition was filed in Allahabad High Court challenging the provision of OBC reservation made by the state government ahead of the urban civic bodies elections. While hearing the matter, the High Court had directed the state government to hold the Urban civic body elections immediately without OBC reservation as it was not in accordance to the ‘triple test’ norm of OBC
reservation in civic bodies set by the apex court.
Consequently, the UP government challenged the High Court order in SC while claiming that it would not conduct the polls without reservation to OBCs. Meanwhile, the state government constituted the five member OBC commission headed by a retired judge.
On the other, the apex court, while hearing the UP government’s plea on March 27, directed the commission constituted to file its report by March 31, staying the High Court order to hold immediate elections without quota.