Team News Riveting
Raipur, December 2
The Chhattisgarh government on Monday took an important decision, empowering people to directly elect their Mayor and Chairman of Municipal Council.
The decision was taken in the Cabinet meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai.
“In the Cabinet meeting, it has been decided to conduct the election of Mayors of Municipal Corporations and Chairman of Municipal Councils of the state through direct method,” a statement issued by the state government said. For this, the draft of Ordinance 2024 was approved in the meeting regarding amendment in various sections of Chhattisgarh Municipal Corporation Act, 1956 (Amendment) Ordinance, 2024 and Chhattisgarh Municipality Act 1961 (Amendment) Ordinance 2024 (Provisions related to direct election and reservation).
It is worth mentioning here that in the undivided Madhya Pradesh state, before 1999, the election of Mayors and Chairman of Municipal Councils in Municipal Corporations was done through direct method. The then government had decided to conduct the election of Mayors of urban bodies and Chairman of Municipal Councils through indirect methods, the notification of which was published in the Gazette on 12 December 2019. Under the amendment act, the elected corporators and council members were electing the Mayor and Chairman.
The cabinet also approved the provision of reservation in local bodies up to the maximum limit of 50 per cent reservation in proportion to the number of Other Backward Classes by relaxing the of 25 per cent in respect of representation and reservation of Other Backward Classes in the elections of three-tier Panchayats and urban bodies, as per the recommendation received in the report of the Backward Classes Welfare Commission.
