Madhya Pradesh Panchayat Polls Cancelled After State Election Commission Assent

The panchayat elections have been due since December 2019 in the state.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint) 

After Madhya Pradesh Governor Mangubhai Patel signed off on the withdrawal of the ordinance directing to conduct elections on Sunday, Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission cancelled panchayat elections scheduled from 6 January to 16 February.

“With the cancellation of the election, the model code of conduct, which was imposed on 4 December, will also be scrapped. The commission will be returning the deposit amount of representatives of the first phase of the election,” BS Jamod, the secretary of the state election commission wrote in a letter to all district collectors in Hindi.

The panchayat elections have been due since December 2019 in Madhya
Pradesh. The government’s decision to pull out the ordinance was preceded by the Supreme Court’s verdicts this month.

The SC ruling had suspended the local body polls for all seats reserved for other backward classes (OBCs) citing lack of empirical data, and directed the state to restate OBC category seats as general seats.

Along with Madhya Pradesh, the Supreme Court also suspended ordinances formulated by Maharashtra granting OBC reservation in local body elections.

Following that, the Maharashtra Assembly, on Monday, passed a resolution suggesting that the (SEC) should not conduct any local body elections until reservation for OBCs was restored.

On 21 December, the chief minister in MP told the Assembly that the state government would not hold the panchayat elections without OBC reservations.

A resolution to the effect was passed by the Assembly on 24 December.