BMC polls: February polls to 12 ZPs & 125 rural bodies sans quota breach

MUMBAI: The State Election Commission on Tuesday announced elections on Feb 5 to 12 zilla parishads and 125 panchayat samitis where the 50% quota limit for SCs, STs and OBCs was not breached. This was the third phase of polls to the state’s local bodies after polls to municipal councils and corporations. Counting will take place on Feb 7.

Elections to 20 zilla parishads and 112 panchayat samitis are still pending because, in these, the 50% reservation limit for SCs, STs and OBCs was crossed.





“The date when elections for the remaining local bodies where the quota is breached can be held will be decided after the next Supreme Court hearing,” said a senior SEC official. The SC took a dim view of local bodies which crossed the quota limit and said while polls can go ahead, the result will have to face the outcome of court proceedings.

Local body polls in the state have to be concluded by Feb 15, as per the directions of the Supreme Court.

The 12 zilla parishads going to the polls are located in Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg in the Konkan. In the sugar belt of Western Maharashtra, they will be held in Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur. In Marathwada, they will be held in Latur, Dharashiv, Chhatrapati Sambhajingar and Parbhani. Hence, this phase does not cover zilla parishads in Vidarbha or North Maharashtra. Around 2 crore voters are expected to participate in the poll.

So far, around 70 of 2,869 posts in civic bodies are set to be elected unopposed by Mahayuti candidates. “We asked the municipal commissioner to send us reports on whether the withdrawal of the opposition candidates was the result of pressure or inducement,” said Waghmare.

Responding to complaints that candidates were continuing to undertake door-to-door campaigning even though the deadline ended Tuesday evening, Waghmare said the rules did not prohibit this. “The rules only prohibit public campaigns. Door-to-door campaigning is allowed without loudspeaker. It cannot be 100 metres from a polling booth,” said Waghmare. Officials said there were 10.3 lakh duplicate voters in the state, of whom 1.2 lakh were in Mumbai. So far, the SEC conducted polls to 246 municipal councils and 42 nagar panchayats.