Now, Mumbai will have third lottery to reserve seats for civic polls

Two ex-councillors had challenged the Eknath Shinde-led government’s ordinance reversing the delimitation of BMC wards from 236 to 227. File pic

The city will witness a third lottery for reservation of seats for elections to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, after the Bombay High Court dismissed petitions against the ordinance of the state government to reduce the number of wards to 227 from 236. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) election is held every five years and the term of the office ended on March 7, 2022. The election was supposed to take place in February 2022, but it was postponed over various issues. One of the reasons is the changing number of seats for the election. The high court dismissed the petitions which challenged the ordinance passed by the current state government on Monday.

"Now the Election Commission (EC) will restart the process in which they can change the boundaries of 227 seats based on various factors like population, natural boundaries, etc. Then there will be suggestions/objections and a lottery for reservation of wards for categories like women, OBC, SC, ST, etc," said a BMC official. The BMC had received a letter from the Urban Development Department on November 22, 2022 to start the process as per the ordinance of the state government.

Until now, two lotteries were conducted for 236 seats, without and with OBC reservation. Now the election commission has to conduct a third lottery based on the new 227 wards. "The state government took a decision based on the Constitution and the decision of the high court proved it correct. Uddhav Thackeray tried to delay the election through these petitions, which he was afraid of facing," said Bhalchandra Shirsat, a spokesperson of the BJP.

Raju Pednekar, ex-corporator of Shiv Sena and one of the petitioners, said that after receiving a written copy of the decision, they will discuss future action - whether to go to the Supreme Court. The boundaries of electoral wards change once in 10 years on the basis of the census and population division. The redrawing of wards took place before the last BMC election held in 2017 on the basis of the 2001 census, with an average population of 50,000 to 55,000 per ward. However, the Shiv Sena and Congress alleged the redrawing affected them in poll results, and hence demanded rectification of wards in June 2021.

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The BMC submitted delimitation data of 236 wards on basis of the 2011 census to the Election Commission. Then there were two lotteries conducted, one before the decision on OBC quota and one after the OBC quota. The last election was held in February 2017. There were 227 seats of which 61 were reserved for OBC candidates as per 27 per cent reservation. Out of 61 seats, 31 were reserved for OBC women candidates.

‘No substance in petitions'

The Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed petitions filed by two former councillors challenging the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government's ordinance reversing the delimitation of BMC wards from 236 to 227. A division bench of Justices S B Shukre and M W Chandwani said it found no substance in the petitions and hence, they stand dismissed.

In November 2021, the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government led by Uddhav Thackeray had decided to increase the number of wards from 227 to 236. However, the Shinde-led Shiv Sena-BJP government in August issued an ordinance bringing the number back to 227.

Former BMC councillors Raju Pednekar and Sameer Desai in their petitions challenged the Shinde government's decision and claimed that it sought to put the clock back. The petitioners claimed that the reversal of the delimitation from 236 to 227 was arbitrary and could lead to a delay in the civic elections.

The state government opposed the petitions alleging that they were filed with "ulterior motives" and ought to be dismissed with exemplary cost. The government further said that it felt that the number of wards need not be increased, as the population rise was miniscule.

2022
Year since BMC polls are due