State to restart delimitation of wards, civic polls may be delayed by months

Elections to 15 municipal corporations and 25 district councils are likely to be postponed by up to six months as the state government has issued a notification restarting the delimitation of wards, thus pronouncing the exercise being carried out by the State Election Commission (SEC) null and void

Elections to 15 municipal corporations and 25 district councils are likely to be postponed by up to six months as the state government has issued a notification restarting the delimitation of wards, thus pronouncing the exercise being carried out by the State Election Commission (SEC) null and void.

Polls to 15 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, are due as their five-year term has come to an end. HT File

Through two bills passed in the legislature, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government has taken over the SEC’s powers of formation of electoral wards. By beginning the process afresh, the state intends to buy time required for the compilation of the empirical data, mandated for the restoration of the reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in the local body elections.

The state government last Monday passed the Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Maharashtra Municipal Corporations, Maharashtra Municipal Councils, Nagar Panchayats and Industrial Townships (Amendment) Bill 2022 and the Maharashtra Grampanchyats and Maharashtra Zilla Parishad and Panchayat Samitis (Amendment) Bill 2022. The government expects that the new laws will stand the legal scrutiny.

Polls to 15 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai, and Nagpur, as well as 25 district councils, 208 city councils, 14 nagar panchayats, and 284 panchayat samitis are due as their five-year term has come to an end.

The SEC has almost completed the exercise for municipal corporations and the process for the district councils is in the last leg. The state will now start it anew. Delimitation involves redrawing the boundaries of electoral wards on the basis of changes in the population and creation of new electoral wards if needed.

The Supreme Court had on March 3 rejected the interim data submitted by the state seeking restoration of the OBC quota. Last year, the apex court had quashed the ordinance promulgated by the government awarding up to 27% reservation to the OBCs in the local body polls. Before it, on March 4, 2021, the SC had stayed the 27% political quota for OBC candidates for the want of scientific empirical data to prove their backwardness. This put the MVA government on a sticky wicket as the OBCs stood to lose 57,000 reserved seats in local bodies.

The state government has set up a five-member panel under former chief secretary Jayant Banthia to collate the empirical data mandated by the SC for the OBC quota.

“Banthia has a 10-year experience of working with the office of registrar general and census commissioner and with other retired IAS officers, representatives of Indian Institute of Population Studies, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences. We expect the task of compiling the data to be completed within the stipulated time. Once the data is collated, the bills already passed to put the reservation cap at 50% and OBC quota up to 27% comply with the SC’s other conditions. Though the SC has asked to hold the polls to five municipal corporations, where elections are overdue, we will be able to convince the apex court about the incomplete process of delimitation. Since we have not taken all powers of the SEC away through the two bills passed last week, the court should not raise objection to it,” a senior Congress minister said.

Urban development minister Eknath Shinde too said that they have not taken away all the powers from the SEC.

“We will go to the SEC for the final approval and its powers of holding the elections are intact. We will soon begin the process of delimitation afresh in all the local bodies. Though the SC has said that elections to the local bodies, which are overdue, should be held immediately, the formation of wards in these bodies has not yet completed and in the absence of such formation, elections cannot be announced,” he said.

Food and civil supplies minister and MVA’s prominent OBC face Chhagan Bhujbal said they are confident that their laws will stand the legal scrutiny.

“In other states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, the process of formation of wards has been done by the state government for years. If our laws are challenged and struck down, it will be applicable to these states as well.”

Bhujbal also said that the dedicated commission appointed to collate the empirical data of the backwardness of the OBCs has started working and the report will be submitted within the stipulated time.

On the other hand, SEC officials are tight-lipped whether they would challenge the government decision, but agreed that elections cannot be held without completion of delimitation exercise.

Kiran Kurundkar, secretary, SEC, said, “We have written to the chief secretary and secretaries of the urban development and the rural development department apprising them of the status of the delimitation process and the number of local bodies due and overdue for polls. We have asked them, as per the newly passed amendments to the existing laws, to submit a compliance report of the delimitation process for the final approval. Though the SC has said that polls to the bodies, which are overdue, should be conducted immediately, they cannot be held unless the delimitation process is completed.”

“A state can take the powers for delimitation, but it cannot delay the polls as per Article 243 (e) and (u) which says the elections should be held within five years. The law is very much likely to be challenged in the court,” constitutional expert Ulhas Bapat said.