Gurgaon: Qutab Enclave residents petitions HC against MCG wards demarcation

The Qutab Enclave RWA of DLF Phase-1 approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday questioning the legitimacy of the municipal corporation’s wards delimitation order that led to the demarcation process.

The move comes two days after an ex-councilor filed a petition with the HC against the proposed demarcation of wards.

Last year in March, citing the 2011 census figures, a delimitation order was issued by the directorate of urban local bodies for a rejig of wards under the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG). As per the order, cities with population of less than 10 lakh or over 8 lakh are to be allotted 32 wards. The total number of wards under the MCG was then trimmed from 35 to 32.

The order said that during the first municipal elections in 2011, an MCG survey found the city’s population to be 11.53 lakh. However, as per the 2011 census figure that was released later, the population was pegged at 9.1 lakh.

Following the order, a three member adhoc committee was formed by the state government to oversee the delimitation of wards and their demarcation before the municipal elections. The panel included the then Gurgaon deputy commissioner TL Satyaprakash, director of urban local bodies Shekhar Vidyarthi and the MCG commissioner or a representative chosen by him. Satyaparakash was then the MCG commissioner as well.

Besides questioning the delimitation of wards, the RWA claimed only BJP leaders were part of the adhoc committee’s consulting members who were tasked with initiating the demarcation process.

As per the petition filed in the HC, the RWA has stated, “As per the ward delimitation rules under section 4(2) of the Haryana Municipal Corporation Act 1994, an adhoc committee is supposed to be constituted with less than five members belonging to various areas of interest and expertise. However, this committee was formed with six members, all from BJP.”

The RWA also questioned the population figures listed in the delimitation order.

“As per the Municipal Corporation Act 1994 Section3 (1), fixation of seats should have been taken from the latest census figures as listed in 2011 by the Central government. Instead, the Census figures of 2010 was mentioned in the delimitation order. Hence, it is fairly evident that the delimitation was done solely with a political motive,” Sumit Bhaskar, general secretary of Qutab Enclave RWA, said.

Bhaskar said the demarcation of wards, too, was done to serve a particular political agenda. He said as per section 5(2) of Municipal Corporation Act 1994, the number of voters per ward should be similar. However, post demarcation, four wards have thrown up a significantly high or low voter count.

On Monday, Rishi Raj Rana, former councillor of ward 1 and Indian National Lok Dal leader filed a petition in the HC, questioning the motive behind having only BJP leaders as consulting members in the committee. He also voiced doubt about the population figure of ward 1 and questioned the decision to not reserve seats for Scheduled Caste or Other Backward Class candidates in ward 1 despite it being home to a sizeable contingent of SC and OBC candidates.