The Cabinet has decided to give 34% of the seats to backward classes in the coming local body elections.
Top sources in the government told The Hindu that the Cabinet, which met on May 25, decided to provide 34% reservation to backward classes.
The reservation would be based on 2011 census. At present, the Scheduled Castes community enjoys 16% reservation in local bodies. The proposal, along with the appointment of State Election Commissioner, had gone to the Lt. Governor for final approval, the source added. The Supreme Court had, in its order on May 8, directed the territorial administration to complete the delimitation process in four weeks and hold the panchayat and municipal elections immediately.
The court, in its order, had directed the government to fix the reservation quota for backward classes.
The Supreme Court had asked the government to fix the quota as the Pondicherry Municipalities Act, 1973, and Pondicherry Village and Commune Panchayats Act, 1973, were silent on the reservation for backward classes. The Act had only provision for providing reservation but not mandatory, said the source.
Delimitation exercise
A source in the Local Administration Department said once the Lt. Governor gave her approval, the delimitation exercise and appointment of State Election Commissioner would be notified.
Elections would be held to five municipalities, 98 village panchayats and 10 commune panchayats. The number of wards had come down to 116 from 123. While the number of wards in Puducherry Municipality had come down from 42 to 37, it had spiked from 37 to 43. The wards in Karaikal and Mahe had decreased while in Yanam it had increased.
The local body elections have a chequered history in the Union Territory. Elections were held in 2006 after a gap of 36 years following the intervention of the Madras High Court. After the tenure ended in 2011, the government did not hold elections for the first six months when the rule prescribes an uninterrupted tenure for local bodies.
As a year passed, the government decided to hold the elections based on 2001 census when the 2011 census figures were out. Objecting to the move, a petition was filed in the High Court and then on it was a case of court battles by activists.
Barring the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India, none of the mainstream political parties, including the Congress, had vigorously campaigned for holding the elections.
Even when local bodies were constituted in 2006, they were deprived of funds to implement development and welfare programmes, said CPI(M) leader V. Perumal, one of the petitioners in the case.