BMC likely to send redrawn ward boundaries to SEC today

Mumbai Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will send revised electoral ward boundaries for all 236 wards in the limits of Greater Mumbai to the state election commissioner for approval on Tuesday, according to civic authorities.

In November this year, the Maharashtra government decided to increase nine seats in the BMC from the present 227 to 236. Following this, BMC was tasked with redrawing the boundaries of the existing 227 wards, on the basis of the population of each ward.

Suresh Kakani, the additional municipal commissioner in charge of handling the preparations for BMC polls 2022, said on Monday, “The state government wanted to conduct elections for 14 to 15 municipal corporations together. Some municipal corporators had not completed their procedure, and hence, we were waiting to send out the ward boundaries to the EC. We will send it mostly by tomorrow itself.”

Following this, reservations for each of these seats will be decided, Kakani said and added that the documents will be made public for suggestions and objections from citizens.

“Reservations such as an electoral ward seat reserved for female candidates, or for scheduled caste candidates, are decided by drawing of chits. It is likely that chits will be drawn first, after which the election commission will invite suggestions and objections,” Kakani said.

According to BMC officials, five electoral wards will be added in the western suburbs, three in the eastern suburbs, and one in the island city. BMC has redrawn these boundaries by dividing the total population of Mumbai with 236 to determine the population requirement per ward before boundaries are redrawn.

A 10%+/- difference in this figure will be accepted as the number of voters per ward. If any electoral ward has a population above that figure, its geographical parts are to be extracted to add to a new ward. This is likely to have a ripple effect on all or neighbouring electoral wards as well, hence the boundaries of several wards will change.

The current composition of the civic body has remained unchanged since 2001. The state government did not increase the number of corporators in 2011 even when the population increase was 3.87% between 2001 and 2011. The BMC has also maintained that in the past 20 years, many people who were residing in the island city has relocated to the western and eastern suburbs. The officials said that this intra-city migration has also affected the population density of Mumbai

According to senior civic officials, the population at present has increased by 4 per cent in the past 20 years which is why it is now important to increase the number of wards to maintain a uniform voter-councillor ratio.

Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar said that she welcomed the decision of the Bombay HC. “The Election Commission and state government have the ultimate say on this and they have taken this decision in the larger interest of the people. The decision to increase wards did not happen in a day as there were discussions before also about increasing the number of wards so that the civic administration can govern the city smoothly,” said Pednekar.