E-Paper
People with over two children can’t fight urban polls in Jharkhand, reservation formula fixed
In Jharkhand, candidates with more than two children are barred from upcoming urban body elections, as per new directives from the State Election Commission.
Persons having more than two children will not be eligible to contest the imminent urban body elections in Jharkhand for which the seat reservation formula has now been sent to the district deputy commissioners (DCs) by the Jharkhand State Election Commission (SEC), people close to the development said on Friday.
“Directives undersigned by the SEC secretary Radheshyam Prasad have been sent to all the DCs for preparing reservation roster and other conditions for the upcoming Municipal Elections in the state. People having more than two children, and whose last offspring was born after February 9, 2013, can’t fight the urban body polls in the state,” a senior official told HT on Friday.
“If the number of children was two or more before this cutoff date of February 9, 2013 and there has been no additional child thereafter, then the person will be eligible to contest the municipal elections. Twins and adopted children will also be added to the total number of biological offsprings. Aspiring candidates will have to file an affidavit declaring that he/she doesn’t have more than two children along with the nomination paper,” Prasad’s letter to the DCs stated.
The letter has further cautioned that providing any wrong information will result in cancellation of the nomination and aspiring candidates will only be able to file nomination after clearing all tax dues and other charges till fiscal 2024-25.
The SEC has directed the DCs to start the preparation for the municipal elections in their jurisdictional districts in earnest after the state government submitted an undertaking in the High Court that municipal elections in the state could be held by March.
It will be the first time that the municipal elections of all the urban bodies in the state will be held simultaneously.
As per the reservation formula sent to the DCs, the reservation for the scheduled castes (SC) will be decided first, followed by the same for the scheduled tribes (ST), BC, OBC, BC-2 etc in the wards for the elections of Municipal Corporation, Municipal Council and Municipality.
“If a Municipal Corporation, Council or Municipality - urban body - has a population of 58, 430, then there will be 23 wards in that urban body. If the SC population in this urban body is 5316, the SC percentage will be 9.09% and lead to SC percentage in total 23 wards to 2.09%, which means that two wards out of 23 wards will be reserved for the SC community in this urban body. Similarly, if the ST population is 8211 in the particular urban body, the total ST percentage will be 14.05%, leading to ST percentage in the 23 wards to 3.23%. This means there will be three wards reserved for the ST communities in the said urban body,” the SEC has stated, explaining the reservation formula.
“By this formula, if the BC population is 33,215 in the said urban body, six wards will have to be reserved for BC communities. If OBC population is 23, 915, then four wards out of six for BC will be reserved for OBC. The remaining 12 wards will be for others,” the directive stated.
The circle offices will first prepare the ward-wise reservation structure at the block level, which will be then sent to the panchayat department for cross checking. If any mistake is found, it will be returned to the circle office. After correction, the final structure will be sent to the DCs, who will send the same to the SEC. After SEC approval, the reservation structure will be implemented.
