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57 of 100 municipality wards reserved in Ghaziabad
Political parties are seeing the release of the list as an indication that local body elections will be held soon.The term of the present House ended on the midnight of January 22 and since then a three member committee is administering the day-to-day affairs of the corporation
The Uttar Pradesh government late Thursday night announced the list of reserved seats for the upcoming local body elections in the state and said only 43 of the 100 municipal wards of Ghaziabad municipal corporation will remain unreserved; the remaining will be reserved for women and individuals from other categories.
Political parties are seeing the release of the list as an indication that local body elections will be held soon.The term of the present House ended on the midnight of January 22 and since then a three member committee is administering the day-to-day affairs of the corporation.
According to the government notification, 22 seats, including the mayoral seat, have been reserved for women candidates.
“Based on the notification issued, a time of seven days has been given for filing public objections, if any, against the ward reservation announced. These have to be submitted to the office of the district magistrate,” Ritu Suhas, additional district magistrate and nodal officer for local bodies, said in a statement on Friday.
Of the 57 reserved seats, seven have been reserved for women from the other backward classes (OBC) and five for Scheduled Caste, among others.
A reservation notification was issued in December 2022 but that was later quashed as the list was challenged by political parties and aspiring candidates in different courts. The new list has come on the directions of the Supreme Court, which is currently hearing a related case.
The Ghaziabad municipal corporation, formerly the municipal board, came into existence after it was upgraded to a nagar nigam in 1994. Ever since, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate has held the post of mayor in consecutive elections.
A government order seeking proposals on reservation of wards was issued to different local bodies in the state on October 21 last year.
The order (while mentioning a previous order of November 24, 2011) said seats which are reserved for SCs, OBCs and women in the previous polls will not be allotted to the same categories in the coming elections.
“We will challenge the seat reservation for the post of mayor. The previous elections, too, the mayoral seat was reserved for women. This is against the government order of November 2011. We will file objections against the proposed reservation and may also take legal recourse if the reservation status is not changed in accordance with the government order of 2011,” said Rajendra Tyagi, former councillor of Raj Nagar.
