Mumbai Congress leaders meet Devendra Fadnavis, demand scrapping of ward delimitation

Hinting at Shiv Sena, Congress alleged that the process of delimitation was politically-motivated to benefit one political party, its partner in the former Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government, and said the reservation process was rigged.

Patel said, “The delimitation was done to benefit one party and its corporators. We want the list of these 236 wards to be scrapped. There is no time to redo the delimitation process, so we have asked to revert back to the original 227 wards. Moreover, the reservation lottery was not an absolute lottery of all wards in the list. You cannot decide to keep some wards in one category and then draw the lottery for the remaining wards.”

BMC added three wards each in the eastern and western suburbs and in the island city during its delimitation process. Ravi Raja said, “Majority of the wards that were affected belong to Opposition corporators or in case of those who had a sure shot chance of winning the election from their old wards.”

Congress alleged that at least 15 wards held by its corporators were affected out of the total 45 wards that were affected by the delimitation.

A senior officer of the state election commission said, “This falls entirely in the purview of the state government. The wards were increased from 227 to 236 by the state government after an amendment to the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act, 1888. The election commission goes by the law. Moreover, we have not received any application from any parties.”