BENGALURU: Rural development and panchayat raj (RDPR) minister KS Eshwarappa on Friday said the government will be seeking legal opinion on the Supreme Court’s verdict striking down political reservation for other backward classes (OBCs) in local bodies before taking any decision on conducting zilla and taluk panchayat elections.
He told mediapersons the government is ready to conduct elections and had set up a delimitation commission, headed by retired IAS officer M Lakshminarayan, to fix boundaries of ZP/TP seats. But in December 2021, the Supreme Court struck down reservation for OBCs in local body elections in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh citing lack of empirical data on OBCs. The apex court said if states think that reservation should be given to OBCs, they have to provide empirical data on each seat.
