Hyderabad: The Telangana State Election Commission (TEC) on Thursday, October 9, suspended the Gram Panchayat and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies (ZPTC) elections after the state high court on the same day passed an interim stay order on GO 9 which enhanced Backward Classes (BC) reservations for the local body polls to 42 percent.

The state government has been given four weeks to file a counter-affidavit and the petitioners have been asked to file a response to the government’s affidavit in two weeks thereafter. This decision comes after two days of arguments in the High Court, where the petitioners had challenged the legality of the reservations being increased to 67 percent for the Telangana local body elections, in violation of Supreme Court’s cap of 50 percent.

Prior to th

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