The West Bengal assembly on Thursday passed two bills proposing to increase the number of civic wards in the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) from 144 to 209 and in the Howrah Municipal Corporation (HMC) from 50 to 68.
Presenting the bills in the assembly, state urban development and municipal affairs minister Agnimitra Paul said that delimitation would lead to the creation of smaller wards with lower populations, making faster delivery of civic services to citizens easier.
“We decided to increase the number of wards on the basis of population. Citizens will get better services,” Paul said.
In mid-July, the KMC launched the exercise to redraw the boundaries of the city’s 144 municipal wards based on population density so that each of the new wards would have around 16,000-18,000 voters. A similar exercise was launched in Howrah.
Civic body elections in both cities are scheduled to be held later this year, along with their counterparts in the districts.
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Although the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won only three of the 144 wards in the last KMC election in 2021, it now controls six of Kolkata’s 11 assembly seats, including Bhabanipur, where chief minister Suvendu Adhikari defeated his predecessor and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee in April.
{{/usCountry}}Although the state’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party won only three of the 144 wards in the last KMC election in 2021, it now controls six of Kolkata’s 11 assembly seats, including Bhabanipur, where chief minister Suvendu Adhikari defeated his predecessor and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson Mamata Banerjee in April.
{{/usCountry}}The delimitation exercise may help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of municipal elections likely to be held later this year, in November or December, political leaders said. While some wards in the KMC have only 8,000-10,000 voters, some in areas with a large Muslim population have 50,000-60,000 voters.
“The number of voters is even higher in some pockets. For example, Ward 66, represented by TMC councillor Faiz Ahmed Khan, has around 80,000 voters. The ward covers parts of Topsia, Tangra and Tiljala,” a KMC official, requesting anonymity, said.
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The split in the TMC in June — following which Mamata Banerjee loyalists and the rebels led by MLA Ritabrata Banerjee are fighting for the right to the party’s election symbol and funds — could lead to triangular contests in the KMC polls.
Former Rajya Sabha member and spokesperson of the rebel TMC group, Santanu Sen, said that the Mamata Banerjee-led faction may not matter in the November KMC elections because more than 60 of the TMC’s 80 MLAs and 20 of the 29 Lok Sabha members have left her.
“Also, the Election Commission of India will declare well before November which group is the real TMC,” Sen, a former KMC councillor, said.