The boundaries of the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) wards will be redrawn for the next elections to the civic body scheduled to be held in 2018-end.
The delimitation exercise is aimed at bringing about uniformity in the number of residents and voters in each ward.
The district administration has already mapped the wards, prepared a sketch of the revised boundaries, and sent a proposal to the Urban Development Department of the State government. The population of the general public as well as the SCs and STs in each ward has also been sent.
Deputy Commissioner D. Randeep, who said the proposal was sent two months ago, said the number of wards in the civic body will remain the same, but the population will be distributed evenly across the 65 wards.
“The area of wards with a high density of population will be reduced while the wards with a thin density of population will have a larger area”, he said, adding that the logic behind the delimitation exercise was to ensure that each councillor will have more or less the same number of voters.
Sources in MCC, who were involved in the delimitation exercise, said they redrew the boundary of wards so that the number of voters in each ward was between 13,000 and 15,000. “The numbers vary for each ward, but they will not be less than 13,000 or more than 15,000,” the source added.
Sources in MCC also added that the delimitation will come into force only after objections are called from the public and people’s representatives. If the objections are found valid, necessary changes and alterations can be made, the sources added.
Meanwhile, Mr. Randeep said the new boundaries of the wards will be in place by the time the next elections are held to the MCC. “The next elections will be fought on the basis of the new boundaries of the wards,” he said. The Department of Urban Development will also take a decision on reservation of wards for various categories, including SCs and STs, besides women.
Though the previous elections to MCC were held in March 2103, the MCC Council was constituted only in August 2013, but the election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor was held only in the first week of December 2013.
With the term of incumbent Mayor M.J. Ravi Kumar and Deputy Mayor Ratna scheduled to end in December 2017, their successor’s term will conclude only in December 2018, marking the end of the present MCC Council’s term. Hence, the next MCC elections is due only in December 2018.
