Raj Sadosh/Abohar.
The change in the reservation system of wards for Abohar Municipal Corporation elections has been challenged in the High Court. The petition filed by Mehar Chand Taneja, Vinay Kumar, Naresh Wadhwa, Puneet Kumar, Satish Kumar and Anita Rani through Advocate Surinder Pal Singh Tinna in the Punjab and Haryana High Court was heard by a bench of Hon’ble Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi and Hon’ble Justice Deepak Manchanda. Another petition filed in this regard was also considered during the hearing.
Advocates Surinder Pal Singh Tinna and Lavish Arora, who appeared for the petitioners, argued that the reserved wards have been decided by ignoring the number of different communities living in that ward to give unfair advantage to some people.
Opposing the new reservation in Abohar Municipal Corporation, Mr. Tinna said that there is only 648 SC population in Ward No. 5 out of a total of 4155. Similarly, in Ward No. 7 out of 4643 there are only 229 SCs, in Ward No. 13 out of 6012, only 1288 belong to SC. In Ward No. 15 out of 4398, there are 750 SC. In Ward No. 19 out of 3707, only 173 are SC and in Ward No. 27 out of 3152, SC population is 545, but these are reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates. Similarly, there are only 822 backward caste people out of 5052 in ward no. 11 and there is only 85 backward caste population out of 3872 in ward no. 17, but these two wards have been reserved for STs.
Learned State Counsel submitted on behalf of the Local Govt department that if anyone has any objection, he can file representation within a period of three days from today.