About 650 representations from the public, councillors, residents’ welfare associations and politicians, reacting to the proposed new boundaries of municipal wards have been received by the Delhi State Election Commission.
The process of delimitation of wards is reaching its final leg, with the elections to the three municipal corporations of Delhi slated for April 2017.
The commission had asked for representations from the public and elected representatives in Delhi on its draft delimitation proposal. The two-week public representation period ended on September 24.
Election panel at work
According to State Election Commissioner Rakesh Mehta, the commission would need about a month to go through all the 650 representations, most of which are in the form of objections. The boundaries of all 272 wards have been changed in the draft due to change in population over the past decade.
“Most people don’t want any changes. But, we have to work with certain principles, including that of equitable population distribution. We will assess all representations and make changes, if necessary, before submitting it to the government in October,” said Mr. Mehta.
So far, each Assembly constituency has four municipal wards in its boundaries. But, the new boundaries have been changed in a way that some Assembly constituencies have more than four and some less, depending on the population. As per the rules, each ward should have 60,000 residents, with a leeway of 10 per cent.
As per the draft, there will be seven wards in Matiala Assembly constituency — the maximum. There will be six wards each in Mundka, Burari, Badarpur and Vikaspuri, and five each in Narela, Badli, Rithala, Kirari, Uttam Nagar, Najafgarh, Bijwasan, Okhla and Deoli.
