NEW DELHI: Four months since the municipal polls were deferred and became a major political flashpoint in the city, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has set up a three-member committee for carrying out a fresh delimitation exercise of the municipal wards in the city, said officials on Saturday. The delimitation exercise will fix the number of many municipal wards in the city for the civic polls in Delhi, which will be the first since the reunification of the three erstwhile municipal corporations.
The civic polls were due this April. On March 9, the State Election Commission (SEC), which is tasked with organising the municipal polls, deferred the announcement of the poll just half an hour before it was to declare the dates citing that the Centre is considering merging of the corporations.
“Taking a step forward in the direction of holding municipal elections, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, by exercising its powers under sections 3, 3A and 5 of the DMC Act, 1957, has constituted a delimitation commission to assist central government in the delimitation of wards and carrying out other functions related to it,” stated the MHA.
It added that the panel will have three members — Vijay Dev, SEC who will be the chairman of the committee, Pankaj Kumar Singh, joint secretary in the union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and Randhir Sahay, additional commissioner, MCD. “The committee shall complete the delimitation exercise and submit its report within four months from the date of issue of this order,” it said.
According to a senior official, the newly-constituted committee will hold its first meeting to decide on the criteria of delimitation on Monday or Tuesday. “The most important aspect of the exercise is to decide on the criteria whether it will be done based on geographical area or the population of the existing municipal wards. Also, it entails what will be the boundaries of a ward and the mix of population,” the official said.
At present, Delhi has 272 municipal wards. The newly-enacted Delhi MCD (Amendment) Act 2022 clearly states that the number of municipal wards shall not exceed 250, which requires a delimitation exercise to be carried out to reorganise the number of wards.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said, “We are happy that the Central government has set up a committee for delimitation of wards. But there is no direction on how many wards shall be there in Delhi.”
In the recent monsoon session of the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal said that he will approach the court asking them to hold municipal polls in Delhi. The polls being deferred had become a major flashpoint between the AAP-led Delhi government and the BJP.
Kejriwal and other senior AAP leaders termed the deferring of the polls to “murder of democracy” and alleged that the BJP is “afraid of defeat” and hence delaying the polls. To this union Home Minister, Amit Shah replied that they want to bring reforms in the civic body and are ready to fight the polls once delimitation is done.
DELAYING POLLS IS MURDER OF DEMOCRACY, SAYS CM
In the recent monsoon session of the Delhi Assembly, CM Arvind Kejriwal said that he will approach the court asking them to hold municipal polls in Delhi. The polls being deferred became a major flashpoint between the AAP-led Delhi government and the BJP. Kejriwal and other senior AAP leaders termed the deferring of the polls to “murder of democracy” and alleged that the BJP is “afraid of defeat” and hence delaying the polls.