PANAJI
A day after his government suffered a setback and was forced to notify panchayat elections in the State following the High Court directive, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Friday said the only purpose to delay the polls was to ensure OBC quotas in the panchayats.
"The only aim to ask the court to delay the panchayat elections was to ensure that all 19 sub-castes in the OBC category are given due representation through ward reservations," Sawant said at a BJP press conference held at the party headquarters in the city.
"We are ready for elections, but also want to ensure that no injustice is done to OBCs," Sawant said, adding that the government had asked for time from the court to ensure reservations for OBCs by following the 'triple test' guideline of the Supreme Court.
Sawant said the government will still attempt to ensure that the modalities of the triple test are followed.
The Directorate of Panchayats has already submitted raw data regarding the OBC population to the State Election Commission (SEC), Sawant said, adding that in the next 8-10 days the State OBC Commission with support from the Social Welfare Department and Directorate of Panchayats will work with the population data and submit it in the format outlined by the Supreme Court.
Sawant said they hope that the SEC will then notify the OBC reservations as per the data.
The SEC, which is the statutory autonomous body entrusted with the responsibility to conduct and oversee the polls had expressed its readiness to hold the polls in time and had even conducted an elaborate exercise for delimitation of wards in all the 186 panchayats.
The State government, however, intervened and put off the election citing the recent Supreme Court judgements related to panchayat elections in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, in which it mandated an elaborate data-related exercise referred to as the 'triple test' for implementing reservation quota for OBCs.
The State government's move to push the elections beyond the expiry of their terms and appoint administrators for the interim was challenged before the High Court which ordered the State government to hold the elections within 45 days.
With no options left, the State government notified the elections late on Friday evening fixing August 10 for polling and August 12 for the results.
