Haryana okays reservation for Backward Classes in panchayat polls

Chandigarh, August 31

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The Haryana Cabinet on Wednesday accepted the report of the State Backward Classes Commission, ensuring reservation for BC (A) category in the panchayati raj institutions.

“Backward Classes (A) will get reservation in the Panchayati Raj Institutions,” said an official statement after a meeting of the cabinet was held here under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Notably, the move comes at a time when panchayat polls are scheduled to be held in Haryana shortly.

The report by the commission was submitted to Chief Minister Khattar on Tuesday.

The commission, headed by former judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court Justice Darshan Singh, had conducted the dedicated empirical enquiry for assessment of the political backwardness of the Backward Classes of citizens, it said.

“In the assessment, the commission found that the Backward Classes of Citizens, Block-A (BC-A) are not adequately represented in the political setup, so they require political reservation in the panchayati raj institutions,” said the statement.

Notably, in the state, as many as 78 groups fall in the backward caste category, with over 70 of them falling in the Block-A or BC (A), a sub-category of the BC.

According to the recommendation of the commission for reservation in gram panchayats, seats of panch in every gram panchayat shall be reserved for the BC (A), in the same proportion of the total seats as one-half of the percentage of population of BC (A) to the total population in that Gram Sabha area. In case the decimal value is 0.5 or more, it shall be rounded off to the next higher integer, it said.

Every gram panchayat shall have at least one panch belonging to the BC (A) if its population is 2 per cent or more of the total population of the Gram Sabha area.

Eight per cent of the total number of offices of sarpanch in a block and rounded off to the next higher integer in case the decimal value is 0.5 or more shall be reserved for BC (A), said the statement.

In order to clarify the interpretation of the recommendations, the following examples have been cited by the commission, it said.

“Say, for example, in village A the population of the Backward Class Block A is 25 per cent of the total population of the Gram Sabha then 12.5 per cent seats shall be reserved for Backward Class Block (A) citizens, subject to the other conditions mentioned.

“Where in a given village the population of the scheduled castes is 50 per cent or more, the BC (A) will not get any reservation irrespective of the percentage of its population,” it said.

Likewise, recommendations for reservation have also been mentioned for Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad.

The commission has stated that as per the direction of the Supreme Court, the reservation shall not exceed aggregate of 50 per cent of the total seats reserved in favour of scheduled castes and BC (A) taken together in a particular panchayati raj institution.