Ahead of the civic polls to be held across various districts in Maharashtra including Mumbai, the State Election Commission (SEC) has written to the district collectors asking them to prepare a rough draft of all the newly formed municipal wards and Nagar Panchayats, that have underwent changes in geographical boundaries due to developmental works.
The SEC has issued a letter to all district collectors; however, in the letter it has mentioned that the collectors of Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburbs are not required to submit the information as of now.
"The Commission has observed that due to non-observance of rules, the number of writ petitions filed against the formation of final ward structure also increases. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid such unwarranted court cases and all these delays. The detailed program of actual ward formation, reservation and election will be issued by the State Election Commission in due course," stated the letter.
The letter also stated that the process of forming the draft should start by August 23 and that the SEC should be informed as soon as the final draft is ready.
Earlier in June, Ravi Raja - senior Congress corporator and Leader of opposition (LoP) in the BMC had written to the SEC for rectification of 45 electoral ward boundaries that were allegedly changed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to favour them in the 2017 civic polls.
"If the SEC can ask all the other district collectors to submit their drafts, they should have said the same to the BMC administration as well," Raja told FPJ on Friday.
"We have already written to the SEC to rectify the mistakes that were done in 2017, we all know that the civic elections will be held early next year and not much time is left now," Raja said.
Meanwhile a senior official of SEC has said that the order of delimination of boundaries is passed six months ahead of the elections.
"Various political parties have submitted their suggestion to us, we will seek their opinion once the final draft is ready," the official said.
