The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the local bodies to conduct elections within four months. Thus, the way for elections pending over the past five years due to the issue of OBC reservations has now been cleared. As a result, all the election aspirants of various political parties are happy and have become active. It is likely that the municipal corporation elections will be held before Diwali.
The tenure of the corporators of the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) came to an end in 2020. The election process was halted due to Corona, OBC reservations, and sub-judice petitions in court over the past five years. In 2020, there were 115 corporators in the corporation. On September 8, 2022, the state government had issued orders to form the Prabhags based on the increased population. A plan in which 126 corporators were to be elected from 42 Prabhags was published, but the draw of reservation was not held. Meanwhile, the state government granted a stay to this process, and no action was taken in this regard for the past three years.
Now, the Supreme Court has given the green signal for the elections of the local self-governments. The election commission will take a decision on the order after receiving the copy of the judgment. The commission will then start the procedure by issuing the election notification. It is expected that the election notification will be released within two weeks.
During the past five years, the municipal corporation administration was looked after by the municipal commissioners as administrators. So far, Astik Kumar Pandey and Abhijeet Chaudhary have served as administrators, and presently G. Srikanth is the administrator.
6 Municipal Councils, 1 Nagar Panchayat
Similarly, after the Supreme Court’s decision, the way for elections in six municipal councils — including Kannad, Paithan, Vaijapur, Khuldabad, Gangapur, and Sillod — and one Nagar Panchayat at Phulambri has been cleared in the district. Presently, the administration of these bodies is looked after by administrators.
