Two bills empowering the Maharashtra government to delimit wards and fix the number of ward members as well as making it mandatory for the State Election Commission to finalise poll schedule for local bodies after consulting the government were passed unanimously by both Houses of the legislature on Monday.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi government introduced the bills amending the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act and the Maharashtra Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and Industrial Townships Act as well as the Maharashtra Village Panchayats and Zilla Parishads and Panchayat Samitis Act and they were passed by the assembly and the council with the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party also supporting them.
The move comes days after the Supreme Court on March 3 rejected an interim report of the state backward commission recommending 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Classes in local body elections.
The apex court also asked the state government and the SEC not to act on the commission's recommendations.
The Maharashtra cabinet had approved the two bills on Friday and they were introduced in the assembly and later in the Council for passage.
State minister and prominent OBC leader Chhagan Bhujbal tabled the bills in the council and they were unanimously cleared by the Upper House.
Earlier, all parties in the state had unanimously decided that polls to local bodies shouldn't be held till the OBC quota was restored.
It was also decided to adopt the Madhya Pradesh model to enact a new legislation to empower the government to take a decision on holding local body polls.
The Supreme Court had last year stayed the 27 per cent quota for OBCs in local body polls in the state.
It had asked the government to set up a commission to conduct empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of backwardness and specify the proportion of reservation required.
