Team Herald
PANJIM: The October 25 municipal elections will have 48.27 percent of the seats (77) reserved for women, Other Backward Classes (OBC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Scheduled Caste (SC). While reservations for OBC have gone up from the existing 19.5 percent to 22.65 percent (less than the notified 27 percent), reservations for ST and SC saw a major setback with just 6.28 percent reservation, less than half their population.
Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza, who holds the Urban Development portfolio, said that as per Article 243T of the Indian Constitution, every State needs to take into consideration the percentage of SC and ST population, while reserving seats for them at municipal elections. “The problem is that these being elections limited to municipal areas, we are not able to get that percentage of SC and ST population and hence had to restrict the reservation,” D’Souza explained.
D’Souza said that the government has not reserved seats for the SC/ST communities, in places that have few or no SC/ST residents.
Reservations for women also do not touch 33 percent – the total reservation for the category is 30.81 percent of the 159 seats. Almost all municipalities have nearly 50 percent of the wards reserved for one of the categories.
Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) notified the reservations in an order issued on Thursday morning. There are 159 wards in the 11 municipalites with 2.37 lakh voters.
As per the order released by DMA Director Elvis Gomes, 49 seats have been reserved for women, which include 31 seats in the general category, 16 in the OBC category while one each for ST and SC. There are reservations for women in all 11 municipalities.
Under the general category, which covers almost 51.57 percent of seats (82 seats), 20 seats are reserved for OBC, while six seats have been set aside for the ST and two seats for the SC category.
This brings the total seats reserved for OBC to 36 (22.64%), seven for ST (4.40%) and three seats for SC (1.88%).
All municipalities have seats reserved for OBCs. Seats for ST have been reserved in Margao and Quepem (two each) and one seat each in Curchorem-Cacora, Cuncolim and Sanguem. SCs have got one seat each reserved in the municipalities of Mapusa, Mormugao and Pernem.
The elections to municipal councils of Mormugao, Margao, Mapusa, Bicholim, Cuncolim, Curchorem, Quepem, Canacona, Sanguem, Pernem and Valpoi are due, consequent upon their term expiring on November 11, 2015. The general election code of conduct comes into force from Friday and will continue till October 28.
