High Court Gives Nod For Local Body Elections

The Telangana High Court today gave its nod for the holding of elections to local bodies in the State.

With this, the State Election Commission can now conduct elections to ZPTCs and MPTCs across 32 districts in the State.

The court was hearing a case against the elections, saying said they could not be conducted as there was no priority for BCs, and as reservation policies were not being followed. The petitioner argued that injustice was being meted out to the BCs while the SCs and the STs were getting due share in the local bodies polls. On this, the court observed that as per the Supreme Court guidelines and the Panchayat Raj Act Section 285-A, reservations could not go beyond 50%. Thus, the State Election Commission could hold elections for ZPTCs and MPTCs in the State, the court ruled.

The petitioner appealed to the court to allocate reservations first to BCs and then to SCs and STs in the seats. The court said that it would hear arguments for that during next hearing, and posted the case to May 22. The court also issued notices to the Election Commission, the Panchayat Raj Principal Secretary, the Telangana BC Corporation, and others to respond through counter-petitions in three weeks.