MUMBAI The Election Commission (EC) along with the state government have declared that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) commissioner Bhushan Gagrani will be the district election officer (DEO) for Mumbai and the suburbs, for the forthcoming assembly elections slated in October. Customarily, this duty has been performed by the district collector.
This is likely to impact the functioning of BMC in September and October. Mumbai has 36 assembly segments and six parliamentary constituencies. In his additional role, Gagrani will be the head of all returning officers and responsible of conducting elections. The DEO also has to coordinate with police, ensure EVMs are properly distributed, polling is conducted duly and results declared without any hitch.
Traditionally, since the Mumbai collectorate has limited staff, additional manpower is sourced from government and semi-government institutions during elections. But as BMC has over a lakh employee Gagrani has been made the DEO, said sources from (EC). This norm is followed in southern cities such as Chennai and Bengaluru as well.