Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Dec 27: The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh is learnt to have decided to challenge in the Supreme Court the Allahabad High Court’s order to immediately hold elections to the local self-government bodies pending the finalisation of the reservations for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
Yogi Adityanath declared that the state would give reservations to the OBCs in the local bodies and would hold a survey under the Supreme Court guidelines. The election will not be held before the survey and grant of reservation and if need be, the state will go to the Supreme Court to challenge the Allahabad High Court’s order for immediate notification of elections, he said.
“We form a commission that will conduct survey of OBCs on the basis of the Supreme Court guidelines. We will not go to elections without providing reservation to OBCs. If required, we will go to the Supreme Court against the High Court’s order,” Yogi Adityanath said shortly after the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court scrapped the state government’s draft notification on urban local body elections and ordered that the election be held without reservation for OBCs.
A division bench of Justices DK Upadhyay and Saurav Lavania in Allahabad High Court had also blocked the reservation for OBCs, dismissing the state’s draft notification of December 5. The bench ordered the Election Commission to immediately issue notification for the election.
Earlier this month, the state issued a provisional list of reserved seats for mayors of 17 municipal corporations, chairpersons of 200 municipal councils and 545 nagar panchayats — a reservation of around 30 per cent, as was provided in during the 2017 elections.
Four mayoral seats — Aligarh, Mathura-Vrindavan, Meerut and Prayagraj — were reserved for OBC candidates. Besides, chairpersons’ seats in 200 municipal councils were reserved for OBCs, 147 of chairpersons’ seats in 545 nagar panchayats were also reserved for OBC candidates.
The plan to provide reservation to OBCs without the top court-mandated survey drew criticism from the opposition Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj chief Mayawati, and a petition was filed in the High Court, objecting to the government’s move. The petitioners had contended that the state government must follow the Supreme Court’s formula and form a commission to study the political backwardness of OBCs before fixing reservation.
In 2021, the top court decreed that the states should hold a “triple test survey” to have contemporary data on OBCs before deciding on the percentage of quota. The argument was that the yardstick for political quota is different from the one for jobs and education and a survey was required to fix the nature and patterns of backward-ness. “Social and economic backwardness does not necessarily coincide with political backwardness,” the top court had said.
The triple test formula requires states to appoint a commission, collect quantifiable data on the community, and allocate reservation to them in local bodies in such a manner that the total reservation in each seat does not exceed 50 per cent. The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court has brushed off the state government’s argument that it had conducted a rapid survey which was as good as the triple test formula and had directed the government to hold the elections forthwith declaring the OBC reserved seats as general.