Maharashtra EC modifies electoral boundaries of 30 wards

The state election commission has changed the electoral boundaries of 30 wards, following the suggestions and objections from citizens and politicians, with the civic polls scheduled in February.

Last year, in October, the election commission had announced delimitation - redrawing of electoral wards on the basis of population - of all 227 ward boundaries.

A reply to a Right To Information (RTI) application filed by activist Anil Galgali has revealed that in one month, the election commission received 629 objections of which 28 have been accepted.

The BMC's election office announced that the changes in boundaries of 30 wards that include areas like G/south ward (Worli and Mahalaxmi), R/south ward (Kandivli), S ward (Bhandup, Powai) and G/north ward (Mahim, Matunga).

Speaking to mid-day, Galgali said, "According to the election department, most of the objections were raised by politicians such as leader of opposition Pravin Chheda, improvement committee chairman Prakash Gangadhare, and corporators Kishori Pednekar, Haroon Khan, Shailja Girkar and Vishnu Gaikwad."

He said, "People were given very little time to argue their case against the widespread irregularities in ward limitation. Changing and redrawing boundaries of wards after declaring gender and caste-based reservations itself is wrong."

The civic body's delimitation exercise on the basis of the 2011 census had already upset the strategies of political parties as many senior corporators have lost their electoral wards.

A senior official from BMC's election department said, "The delimitation was taken up after election commission's directives to divide the wards according to population growth observed in the 2011 census. We had tried to maintain constant population of 54,000 in almost all the 227 electoral wards."

"The recent redrawing of wards based on citizens' objections will not affect things much as they are only minor changes to boundaries," an official said.