New Delhi, Feb 18: The Supreme Court gave green signal for the local body elections. The Apex Court issued interim orders on the BC reservations issue.

The court delivered judgment permitting observance of the present reservations in the local body elections.

It may be recalled that the state government challenged the judgment of the High Court in September, that reservations should not exceed 50 percent. Now with the Apex Court’s verdict, BCs would have 34 percent, SCs 18.3 percent and STs 8.2 percent reservations in the local body elections. The Apex Court permitted the government to hold the elections on the basis of the 2001 census. The state government has been waiting for the 2011 census data to hold the elections. The government showed this as an excuse to postpone the polls. With the Apex Court’s direction to conduct the polls on the basis of the available data, it now becomes imperative on the part of the government to hold elections at the earliest.