A total of 63 wards are reserved for OBCs-53 that did not have the reservation in the last three elections were picked on “first priority”, and the other 10 were determined through a lottery, reports Chaitanya Marpakwar.
After delimitation, BMC has 236 wards, with 50% reserved for women across all groups. Of the total, 15 are for SCs, 2 for STs and 63 for OBCs.
Election analyst Hitesh Jain said many netas will have to hunt for new seats. “With 27% OBC reservation, more seats were taken out from the open category. This means these netas will have to look for other open seats in neighbouring areas. Some seats of sitting woman corporators are now reserved as general seats, which means they will also have to look for a seat reserved for women or fight on the general seat,” Jain said.
While leaders across parities have been hit by the new configuration, Congress and BJP have said they are set to move court against it.
Wards lost to diff quotas, many netas have to hunt for new seats
Many prominent corporators have lost their wards to reservations and will now have to hunt for new seats for the BMC elections scheduled for September/October. A lottery was held on Friday to announce ward reservations for BMC elections in view of the Supreme Court order allowing an OBC quota of up to 27% in local body polls. The state election commission (SEC) had announced the programme in 14 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, to accommodate the OBC quota.
For instance, wards of BJP’s Prabhakar Shinde (ward number 109), Samajwadi Party’s Rais Shaikh (220), Congress’s Ravi Raja (182) Shiv Sena’s Amey Ghole (184), Yashwant Jadhav (217), who was the Standing Committee Chairperson, have been reserved for women this time.
“My seat (109) has been reserved for ladies. We will examine the details of the reservation and then will follow the instructions of the party. I am confident of winning from any seat from where the party fields me,” said Shinde.
Shaikh said his seat has been split. “Many old seats were split into multiple new seats. We will study the reservations of the neighbouring wards and then decide on the candidates. We are sure to win from adjacent seats by giving good candidates,” Shaikh said. However, wards of some senior corporators like BJP’s Vinod Mishra (44), former Mayor Kishori Pednekar from Shiv Sena (206), Shiv Sena’s Vishakha Raut (197) are now still in the open category so they could contest from the same ward.
In Thane, ward reservations for 142 seats for the Thane Municipal Corporation were declared on Friday. Of these, 114 are for the open category, of which 56 are for women. 15 seats are for OBCs, of which 8 are for women. Ten seats are reserved for SCs; 5 for women. Three have been reserved for nomadic tribes of which 2 are for women.
In Navi Mumbai, of 122 seats, 25 are for OBCs, of which 13 are for women. Eleven are reserved for SCs including 6 for women. Two are reserved for STs including one for women.As per the new boundaries, three wards increased in the island city, western and eastern suburbs respectively in Mumbai. In most cases, new wards have been carved out by combining parts of two administrative wards, except in case of G south (Worli), N (Ghatkopar) and R south (Kandivali) where an entirely new corporator ward has been added to the existing administrative ward.
The draw was held in the presence of municipal commissioner Iqbal Chahal who is now administrator of BMC.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/mumbai-obc-wards-for-bmc-polls-drawn-opposition-cries-foul/articleshow/93222459.cms
