Shimla, Jul 22 (PTI) The Himachal Pradesh Cabinet will review its decision to postpone the reservation roster for the urban local body (ULB) elections in its meeting scheduled to be held on July 24, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Himachal Pradesh Principal Secretary of Urban Development, Devesh Kumar, also informed the State Election Commission (SEC) that only the state Cabinet can revoke or modify its June 28 decision.
“The department shall place the matter in the next Cabinet meeting to be held on July 24. Therefore, it is requested that any further action regarding ULB elections may be postponed till a decision is taken by the Cabinet,” Kumar said in the letter to the SEC secretary.
The SEC, on July 10, took strong exception to the Urban Local Body (ULB) Department’s letter to all deputy commissioners, seeking the postponement of the election reservation roster for the ULB elections due to the non-availability of updated census data.
The commission, in a letter to the state’s chief secretary, asserted that the ULB Department has no authority to alter the schedule issued by the SEC, which is a constitutional body, and asked the government to immediately withdraw the directions.
The elections to all municipal bodies in the state except Shimla Municipal Corporation are scheduled to be held in seven municipal corporations, 29 municipal councils and 37 nagar panchayats. Elections are also to be held in more than 3,600 panchayats.
For the municipal elections, the Election Commission released the schedule for deciding the ward division, delimitation, reservation roster of all the wards two months ago which lapsed on July 11 and to provide complete information of the reserved wards to the Election Commission by July 15.
Principal Urban Development had asked all ten DCs of non Tribal districts in the state asked to postpone the reservation process for ULBs due non-availability and absence of actual updated demographic data of electors of Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) communities and due to delayed national Census, the implementation/finalization of the reservation roster for the ULBs elections shall be postponed until the latest Census data becomes available.
As such, the Census 2011 data remains the relevant and legitimate basis for the reservation of seats in the upcoming ULB elections, as it is the last published census data available, the SEC said and directed that the ULB Department’ letter be withdrawn immediately. PTI BPL RHL
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