Hyderabad, May 7 -- The Supreme Court has given a leg up to people's representation at the grassroots - normally called the local self-government bodies, from panchayats to huge municipal corporations - by asking the Maharashtra state election commission to hold elections to them. It asked if there was any logic in allowing bureaucrats to take policy decisions by being the administrators sans elected members. All this is due to litigation on what proportion of these bodies should be occupied by OBCs.

The court asked on Tuesday the Maharashtra's state election office to notify elections within four weeks of the apex court's order. The polls have been due from April 2020 to December 2023. Whenever the polls in due course were scheduled, an...