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Uttar Pradesh okays 2015 as base year for reservation of all posts
Now, 2015 will be the base year for reservation of all posts in the forthcoming panchayat polls in Uttar Pradesh, including that of zila panchayat and kshetra panchayat chairpersons and members
Now, 2015 will be the base year for reservation of all posts in the forthcoming panchayat polls in Uttar Pradesh, including that of zila panchayat and kshetra panchayat chairpersons and members.
The state cabinet, at a meeting presided over by chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday, approved amendments to the old reservation policy, as proposed by the panchayati raj department in this regard, after the High Court on Monday struck down the old policy.
The HC, while quashing the old reservation policy, had said, “1995 cannot be the base year since the government had not deleted the old reservation policy.”
The state government is likely to issue the revised reservation policy on Wednesday, after which reservation for all posts of zila panchayat and kshetra panchayat chairpersons and members, and village pradhans and members, will be done afresh.
“The cabinet has cleared the amendments, we proposed, to take 2015 as the base year to reserve posts for various castes for the three-tier elections,” panchayati raj minister Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary said.
“We expect to issue the GO (government order) on the revised policy by Wednesday evening or Thursday morning,” the minister said.
The government’s move comes in the wake of the Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court directing it to take 2015 as the base year for the panchayat elections. The court on Monday quashed the UP government’s February 11 order that took 1995 as the base year to reserve posts for panchayat elections.
The government had already reserved posts under all the categories taking 1995 as the base year and taking categorization done in all the previous polls since 1995 (1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 1015) into consideration.
“Now, we will have to carry a fresh reservation exercise, taking 2015 as the base year as directed by the court,” the minister said. The exercise is bound to change the reservation category of a majority of the posts that were reserved earlier, he said.
He said the government would complete the reservation exercise and submit the lists of all the posts to the state election commission by March 27, after which the commission could announce the election schedule. “The fresh reservation exercise will not impact elections that will be held as planned earlier by the commission,” the minister said.
