Panaji, Mar 16 (IANS): Days after facing Supreme Court strictures over the faulty reservation of wards for marginalised communities and women in the upcoming municipal polls, the Goa government's Directorate of Municipal Administration on Tuesday notified a fresh, corrected list of 74 reserved wards.
The Congress has, however, slammed the Goa government for not following the traditional system of rotation for the reservation of municipal wards for women, Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Castes.
According to a fresh notification issued on Tuesday by Director Municipal Administration Gurudas Pilarnekar, 34 wards have been reserved for women, five for SC, eight for ST and 27 for OBCs across five municipalities.
Tuesday's fresh notification follows a Supreme Court order last week, which slammed the Goa government over the erroneous procedures followed in reservation of constituencies for the upcoming municipal polls and passed strictures against the Goa government for appointing a serving Law Secretary as a State Election Commissioner.
Goa's 11 municipal councils and one municipal corporation were scheduled to go to polls on March 20. But after the Supreme Court, on Saturday, upheld an order of the Bombay HC faulting reservation proceedings in five municipal councils namely Margao, Mormugao, Mapusa, Quepem and Sanguem, polls in the named councils have been postponed till April 30.
State Congress president Girish Chodankar said that while the Congress was glad that the fresh notification of reserved seats had given justice to marginalised communities and women, who were cheated out of their rights, the manner in which the fresh reservation has been carried out was haphazard.
"The reservation carried out by the Pramod Sawant government was against the interest of women, OBC and ST and SC communities. The High Court and the Supreme Court order gave them justice," Chodankar told reporters on Tuesday.
"Ascending and descending rotation procedure has not been followed by the government in the fresh reservation list. There is no transparency in the reservation process," Chodankar alleged.