The ongoing court case over the disqualification of 10 corporators from Beed municipal council over alleged dumping of garbage in the civic body chairman Bharatbhushan Kshirsagar's chamber in protest against garbage pile-up in the city has led to postponement of the election results of the Osmanabad-Latur-Beed local authorities some time after June 6. The indefinite deferment will give sleepless nights to Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Suresh Dhas and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) backed Independent candidate Ashok Jagdale as the court allowed the corporators to cast their ballot, but stayed the declaration of the results pending decision by the Ministers for Urban Development Department and Rural Development Department.
Besides these 10 corporators from Beed, two corporators Deepali Dongre and Bhimrao Gaikwad from Shirur Kasar municipal council too faced disqualification. Dongre was disqualified on grounds of being in government service as a Teacher Assistant. While Gaikwad is a father of four children which is against the norms set by State Election Commission of Maharashtra (SECM) for candidates contesting civic polls. The ECI however allowed the two to cast their ballots as their names were included in the voters list. The voting in the Osmanabad-Latur-Beed local authorities seat was held on May 21.
In a case that has seen a few twists and turns after the Beed district collector and later on Minister of State for Urban Development Department Dr Ranjit Patil and Minister for Rural Development Department Pankaja Munde disqualifying the 12 corporators, 10 of them from Beed civic body challenged the verdict in the court. The corporators also challenged the counting of votes process arguing that keeping their 10 votes separate while counting will violate secrecy of their votes. The court in the meanwhile ruled that the 10 votes be only counted if the margin of votes between the two candidates is less than 10 votes.
The ball is now in the court of the two ministers. Sources in the ECI disclosed that the poll body has time till June 21, when the term of the sitting member is to end, for counting of votes and declaration of the results.