The redrawing of the electoral map to increase seats from the existing 227 to 236 will impact the ward boundaries of around 70% seats in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said. As directed by the State Election Commission (SEC), the civic body on Tuesday released the revised boundaries for public suggestions and objections ahead of polls, which is expected to be held in the next two months.
Three wards each have increased in the city, western, and eastern suburbs. In most cases, the new wards have been carved out by combining parts of two administrative wards, except in the case of G south (Worli), N ward (Ghatkopar) and R south ward (Kandivali) where an entirely new corporator ward has been added to the existing administrative ward.
“While 13 administrative wards have either an addition or subtraction to their corporator wards, boundaries of 70% electoral wards have been affected in some way. The new electoral wards will go into the administrative wards where the maximum portion of the poll ward falls,” a senior BMC official was quoted by the Times of India as saying.
Senior officials from the election department said the new electoral wards have been drawn out to balance the number of voters. As per the draft, the population of voters in each ward in around 50,000-60,000.
BJP MLA Yogesh Sagar, whose party has the majority of corporators (10) from the R South (Kandivili) ward, said BJP was confident of winning the new seat also. He said that people don’t care about ward boundaries being changed and that they only see the party which has done a lot of work for betterment of public services. “We already have a majority of corporators here, who have worked in the last five years and we will win the new seat,” he said.
The SEC has directed the BMC to publish the revised ward boundaries on February 1 and to accept suggestions/objections until February 14. Citizens who file objections and suggestions will be informed separately about the date of hearing. After the hearings are completed, the final list of ward boundaries will be published on March 2.
Two BJP councillors on Friday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Maharashtra government’s ordinance notifying the increase of nine seats in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for which elections are scheduled in February. A bench headed by Chief Justice N V Ramana was urged by senior advocate Siddharth Bhatnagar that the appeal of the BJP leaders needed an urgent hearing as polls for the municipal body are round the corner.
The city’s total population, as finalised for the 236 wards, is 12.44 million. The SEC has accepted the BMC’s ward-by-ward SC and ST population data. Half of the 236 wards are reserved for women. There are 15 SC wards and two ST wards among the 236 wards. In March 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that reservations for OBCs in state local bodies could not exceed the total ceiling of 50% for SCs, STs, and OBCs.
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