Maharashtra municipal polls to be held without OBC quota

Elections to 92 nagar parishads and four nagar panchayats in Maharashtra will be held on August 18, the State Election Commission (SEC) announced on Friday.

The elections to these municipal bodies are likely to be held without OBC reservation while a related case is pending before the Supreme Court, sources in the SEC said.

Counting will be held on August 19.

The BJP had earlier opposed the holding of local body elections until the OBC quota, set aside by the Supreme Court in March last year, was restored.

The party is now in power in the state along with the Shiv Sena faction led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

Elections will be held for local urban bodies in Pune, Sangli, Solapur, Kolhapur, Nashik, Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Jalna, Beed, Osmanabad, Latur, Amravati and Buldana districts.

State Congress chief Nana Patole alleged that then chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi were responsible for Other Backward Classes losing political quota in local body elections.

"There should be no elections until the reservation is restored," he demanded.

"Congress is firm on its demand to put off any elections until the Supreme Court restores the OBC reservations. The BJP is now in power in Maharashtra. It should follow up the issue with the Union government," he added.

The SC had refused to restore OBC reservation for want of empirical data.