Lucknow, June 23 (IANS) An association of mayors will protest the Uttar Pradesh government’s decision barring civic poll candidates from using symbols allotted to political parties, an official said Wednesday.
‘The state government’s decision to debar political parties from the civic elections is undemocratic. We are going to bring in a resolution against it in our forthcoming general body meeting June 25-27 in Mumbai,’ chairman All India Council of Mayors Ashutosh Varshney said at a press conference here.
‘Besides the resolution that would be passed by 135 mayors of the country, we will take every democratic step to make the state government re-consider and withdraw its decision for making the urban local bodies a partyless affair,’ he said.
‘We will hit the streets, carry out demonstrations and would even move court against the autocratic functioning of the Bahujan Samaj Party government,’ he said.
Under the banner of Uttar Pradesh Mayors’ Council, Varshney, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and mayor of Aligarh, also handed over a memorandum to the Uttar Pradesh Governor B.L. Joshi, seeking his intervention in the matter.
‘Presently, there is no state in the country where political outfits cannot contest the urban local bodies elections. At any cost we will not allow undemocratic system in the state,’ said Dinesh Sharma, chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Mayors’ Council.
By bringing in the undemocratic pattern for holding the elections, the BSP government wants to come to power in the local bodies illegally, said Sharma.
The state cabinet June 18 decided that the urban civic agencies’ elections would be on partyless lines.
