The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has published the final list of voters for the upcoming civic election. Earlier former corporators had alleged that there was a huge margin between population and the number of voters.
The draft voter lists had left many sitting corporators to ponder over the wide difference between the population of the area and the number of voters.
Ashok Gawade, a former mayor and senior NCP leader from Navi Mumbai said that they have no choice but to contest the election with the final voters’ lists. “Normally, there are five percent changes in the draft and final lists that do not have a major impact,” said Gawade. However, he added that there is a need to prepare fresh voter lists from scratch as many people who are not living in the city owing to many reasons are also on the lists. “There is a need to change the procedure of putting the address of voters as many voters complain of wrong addresses,” said Gawade, adding that even his voter card has the wrong address.
The civic body published the draft voters’ list on June 23 and gave till July 1 to submit the objections and suggestions. Later, the civic body extended the date till July 3. The civic body received around 1,650 objections and suggestions for the draft voter lists. After going through the objections and suggestions, the final voter lists were supposed to be published on July 9. However, the civic body extended till July 16.
The civic election is expected to be held by October 2022. However, a final schedule has not yet been published. There are a total of 121 wards under the NMMC and these wards have been distributed in 41 panels. While each panel consists of 3 wards, panel number 41 will have only two wards.
