The Jharkhand government will conduct panchayat polls soon without OBC reservation.
Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, answering to a query by AJSU MLA Lambodar Mahto on Monday during question hours of the ongoing Budget session, said that there is no compulsion of conducting panchayat polls with triple test.
“Due to delay in conduct of panchayat elections, the Centre has stopped release of funds between Rs 700 and 800 crore meant for rural development.
Since the state has come out of Covid pandemic, we will not delay any further and conduct panchayat polls without OBC reservation.
“It has not been mandated to conduct polls with triple test by the Supreme Court. Had it been the case, Bihar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka would not have conducted panchayat elections,” Soren said.
The triple test outlined by the Supreme Court includes setting up a dedicated commission to conduct an inquiry into the nature and implications of the backwardness in connection with local bodies within the state, specifying the proportion of reservation required to be provisioned local body-wise according to the commission’s recommendations, and ensuring that reservation doesn’t exceed 50 per cent of the seats reserved in favour of SCs, STs and OBCs taken together.
Soren also accused the Opposition of adopting double standards.
“On one hand, they are inciting the panchayat representatives to demand polls and in the House they want to delay the process by demanding a triple test.
“We will conduct the triple test but it will be a long-drawn process with a household survey. We will fix OBC reservation at a later stage after conducting the panchayat polls,” said Soren.
On Wednesday (March 9), replying to the calling attention question posed by BJP MLA Ramchandra Chandravanshi state rural development and panchayati raj minister Alamgir Alam had also said that panchayat polls would be conducted soon without conducting a triple test.
Incidentally, the Supreme Court had in January this year declined to recall its earlier orders quashing 27 per cent OBC quota in panchayat polls in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and said the state election commissions would dereserve OBC seats in all future local body elections across India unless such quota is determined in strict compliance of the Apex Court’s triple-test guidelines.
The last panchayat polls were held in Jharkhand in November-December 2015. The tenure of the panchayats ended in December 2020.
But the tenure has been extended twice owing to the Covid situations by the state government.
The state government is under pressure to conduct the panchayat polls as neighboring states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Odisha have conducted the polls despite Covid situations.
Hemant Soren, while replying to BJP MLA Dhullu Mahato’s question on coal PSUs not complying with land acquisition rules and not returning the unused land to the original landholders, attacked the central government.
“If Central government has its way then it would send people of the state to other parts and take their land for mining only. Coal PSU take land from original land holders under Coal Bearing Act in which the state government has a very negligible role.
“We will be taking a decision on the issue after studying the Coal Bearing Act,” said Soren.
The parliamentary
affairs minister Alamgir Alam, replying to a question on domicile policy, said that the government committee is working on the issue and would take a call on finalising the policy soon keeping best interest of the state, till then the domicile policy of 2016 would continue.
Alamgir Alam on a query by CPI-ML MLA Vinod Singh, admitted that there have been 46 incidents of mob lynching in the state between 2016-2021 and out of which 11 cases have been executed and 51 accused given life imprisonment. Alam also said the government would soon constitute fast track courts for mob lynching cases.
