Will not begin delineating BMC wards until December 20

The Maharashtra government informed the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that it would postpone the ward delimitation procedure concerning the financially robust BMC until after hearing a complaint against the shrinking of wards in the civic body. Two petitions filed by two former council members, Raju Pednekar and Sameer Desai, were being heard by a division bench of Justices SV Gangapurwala and AS Doctor. The petitions were in opposition to an ordinance that the Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government issued on August 8 that reduced the number of directly elected council members within the boundaries of the BMC from 236 to 227.

 

Mr. Pednekar is a Shiv Sena member (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). On December 13, the Supreme Court told the court that the arguments on the matter had been preserved. The petition was retained by the HC until a hearing on December 20. Priyanka Chhapwale, Deputy Secretary of the Urban Development Department, filed an affidavit in opposition to the plea, claiming that there had been a negligible increase in population between the 2001 and 2021 censuses and that as a result, wards had not been increased for the elections in 2012 and 2017.

 

Mumbai had a population of 1,19,78,450 in 2001; this number rose to 1,24,42,373 in 2011, a 3.87% rise. "It is a well-established legal concept that the right to run for office does not qualify as a basic right. The affidavit continues, "Instead, the asserted right is only a creation of a statute. The government is requesting that Mr. Pednekar's appeal be rejected because it was submitted with "malafide" intentions and as a result of "political influence" and that the law was valid and constitutional as it stood on November 30, 2021 (with 227 seats).

 

Avinash Sanas, Deputy Commissioner of the State Election Commission (SEC), stated in an affidavit submitted on Wednesday in response to the petitions that the SEC was forced to recommence the pre-election process after the Maharashtra government increased the number of seats from 227 to 236. It stated that the SEC's delimitation powers were withdrawn and given to the state by the previous MVA government, which also modified the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to the modification, and the case is still pending.