AAP submits its objections to MCD delimitation report

AAP leaders met state election commissioner on Thursday to point out loopholes in the delimitation exercise. AAP has claimed that there is widespread discrepancies in the redrawing of the municipal boundaries

New Delhi The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday submitted its objections to the draft delimitation report for the redrawing of municipal boundaries in the Capital, while calling for Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) polls to be held at the earliest.

A three-member delimitation commission has submitted its report and has sought public feedback. The report has proposed 250 wards in Delhi which have varying populations between 4,000 to 90,000. (HT Photo)

Polls to the erstwhile North, East and South MCDs were scheduled to take place in April, but were indefinitely postponed in March after the Centre decided to unify the three MCDs. As part of the unification process, the state election commission (SEC) on September 13 had put a draft delimitation report in the public domain, seeking comments and suggestions from city residents and political parties till October 3. In the draft report, the number of wards in the city has been reduced from the existing 272 to 250.

On Thursday, a delegation of AAP leaders went to the state election commission and submitted the party’s objections, most of which deal with the huge disparity in the population of wards, and about some areas within a ward not being included in the boundaries of the wards.

The delegation, which included legislators Saurabh Bharadwaj and Durgesh Pathak as well as party functionary Adil Khan, submitted a representation to the poll panel. “The delimitation exercise seems politically motivated. How can there be wards with a population of 30,000 and 90,000 at the same time? Many localities have been turned into isolated-islands; they are physically within some ward but on paper they are inside a ward many kilometres away. We appeal to the SEC to fix all discrepancies and hold MCD elections at the earliest,” Pathak said after the meeting.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hit back, accusing the AAP of politicising the delimitation process.

AAP’s representation to the poll panel stated: “The committee has disturbed most of the wards in most assembly constituencies without changing the number of wards in assembly constituencies. Certain areas have been moved from one ward into another ward; the Delimitation Committee has to tell the rationale behind this move to the people of Delhi. Disadvantaged wards of the lower income groups pushed further into the dark by increasing their population sizes; elite and richer wards handpicked for smaller population sizes.”

The AAP delegation appealed to the poll panel to conduct MCD elections at the earliest. “People of Delhi are extremely fed up with the BJP. They have turned Delhi into a city of garbage. You will find garbage littering on every street, in every corner across Delhi. Delhiites want to be free of the corrupt administration of BJP in MCD,” said Pathak.

The AAP also claimed lack of transparency in the delimitation exercise. It flagged that the formula for delimitation and the logic behind the exercise was not made public by the SEC or the delimitation commission.

In response, Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said, “Every political party and all citizens have the right to file objections towards the delimitation draft for MCD wards as publicised by the SEC. It is sad that after filling their objections, the AAP leaders have issued a political statement casting aspersions on the intentions of the poll panel.”

Meanwhile, a person aware of the matter said that SEC officials have already started carrying out field inspections to screen any anomalies so that no locality is left out. “The panel will review the feedback received from political parties and the public and will try to work on the suggestions and accommodate them,” said the person, noting that wards even during the erstwhile trifurcated MCDs had variations in the population size.