E-Paper
Civic polls process: NCP files plea in apex court
The SEC carried out ward delimitation, announced the ward-wise final voters’ list, and conducted the draw for reservations
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has challenged the decision of the state government and the state election commission (SEC) to restart the process of local self-governments including municipal corporations and zilla parishads (ZPs) in the state.
NCP city unit president Prashant Jagtap said, “The Pune unit of the NCP had filed a petition in the Supreme Court (SC) against the SEC and Maharashtra government. By restarting the election process again, it is clear that the administration will rule local bodies for more than a year. It is against the principle of democracy to keep elected members away from local self-government.”
Jagtap said, “Since March 2022, the election to 14 municipal corporations, 27 ZPs and 350 municipal councils have been scheduled and administration has been appointed. The NCP does not have a problem if the wards comprise three or four members. We are ready to contest the election under any circumstance. But it is against the principle of democracy to keep administrators on local bodies for a year.”
Following the SC’s instruction, the SEC had done everything to announce the elections, The SEC carried out ward delimitation, announced the ward-wise final voters’ list, and conducted the draw for reservations. In the interim however, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government lost majority, and the Eknath Shinde faction and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government. Chief minister Shinde and deputy chief minister Fadnavis scrapped the earlier process and decided to consider the 2011 Census data for the elections. It means that in municipal corporations, each ward will have four members.
