Civic body elections with old or new ward delimitation?

Now, the date for elections to the Municipal Corporation can be announced anytime but amid all this, there is a suspense whether these will be held according to the old delimitation list or new delimitation of wards will be done.

On Monday, the Supreme Court had directed the state government to notify municipal elections in two weeks and to be completed in eight weeks thereafter.

Even leaders of the ruling party are unaware about the course of action that will be followed now — new delimitation or old delimitation.

President of the District Congress Committee Sanjay Talwar said AAP government was not going to win this municipal elections. “If new ward delimitation is done, they might secure some seats as they have done it according to the preference of their own candidates to give them an edge. But if the elections are done as per the old ward list, there is no chance of AAP wining even a single seat as the party has failed to live up to the expectations of the people,” he said.

Talwar said the Congress was ready for the elections with or without ward delimitation.

A senior leader from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said this state government says something else and practice something all together different. “Till now, we are not aware of old ward delimitation will be followed or new. Whatever they do, one thing is clear is that they won’t be able to form the House in Ludhiana,” he said.

AAP MLA and senior party leader Gurpreet Gogi said as per his knowledge, the elections would be done according to the new delimitation as notification was already issued last year in this regard.

Last year, the draft notification was prepared about the delimitation and the city was divided into 95 wards with 50 per cent of the wards reserved for women. Fourteen wards were reserved for the SC category and two for the BC categories.

There were allegations that ward delimitation was politically motivated and ruling party MLAs got the same done according to their own whims and fancies and one ward was divided into three to accommodate party workers. It was also pointed out that the population in a few wards was from the reserved category but the government had declared them as general and vice-versa.

MC Commissioner Aaditya Dachalwal said the Local Bodies Department had sought opinion from the Advocate General of Punjab in this regard and it was waiting for the same. Once the opinion comes, the final decision in this regard will be taken, he said.