Amid recent turn of political developments in the western state of Maharashtra, the State Election Commission (SEC) has shown a green signal to the pending polls of municipalities including the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Moreover, the Election Commission has also given its nod for elections in municipal councils, Zilla Parishads and other local bodies across the state which will be held between September–October.

In a gazette notification issued by the SEC on Wednesday, it said the electoral rolls of the legislative assembly as on July 1, 2023, would be used to prepare the rolls for the polls of the above state bodies. The notification was issued under the Municipal Corporation Act, 1988, the Maharashtra Nagar Parishad, Nagar Panchayat and Industrial Township Act, 1965 among others.

All eyes are set on BMC elections as it is waiting for its mayoral elections for almost a year now and due to Covid waves, the polls were pushed ahead by the government. Along with the BMC, terms of 24 municipal corporations, 25 Zilla Parishads and 207 Municipalities has expired, and their elections have also not been held so far.

Speaking about civic bodies of different municipalities except Mumbai across Maharashtra, the five-year term of the municipal corporations in Thane and Nagpur ended in 2022 on March 4 and 5. The term of representatives in Solapur and Amravati ended on March 8 last year. Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune and Nashik are other municipal corporations where an administrator will be appointed.

In the gazette notification, it is mentioned that it is notified to prepare a voters list for general and by-elections of local self- government bodies.

WHY THE BMC ELECTIONS ARE DELAYED?

The Civic Body polls are usually held in April-May on the election year. According to Section 6 of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act, the term of the BMC’s general body or house, represented by all elected representatives (227 at present) ends after five years. The first general body elected in 2017 elections ended on March 7, 2022.

According to Section 6A of the MMC Act, the five-year term-end of the general body automatically dissolves all statutory bodies in the BMC, the post of Mayor, and marks the end of the term of elected representatives.

In the absence of a mayor and other elected representatives, the then state government under Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) had appointed BMC Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal as the administrator to run the civic body for the first time in 40 years. Financial and administrative duties carried out by the various statutory bodies of the BMC, such as the standing committee in charge of voting and deciding all financial transactions of the civic body, and the improvements committee, are to be carried out by the state-appointed administrator.

The erstwhile MVA Cabinet on November 10, 2021, in a delimitation move had increased the number of BMC wards to 236 from 227 and notification for the same was issued on December 3. Based on it, the State Election Commission asked the BMC administration to redraw ward boundaries. The delimitation draft was issued on February 1, 2022, which received negative reactions from Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress.

After Eknath Shinde took over as the Chief Minister of the state, his government issued an ordinance issued on August 8, 2022 and reversed the decision, bringing back the number of wards to 227 and the ordinance was replaced by the Act on September 8, 2022.

The reversal was challenged by former BMC corporators Raju Pednekar and Sameer Desai of Uddhav Thackeray led Shiv Sena by filing separate petitions before the Bombay High Court calling the move unconstitutional.

The High Court on April 2023 upheld the decision to reverse the delimitation of wards in the BMC by the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government. The High Court’s decision has been challenged before the Supreme Court (SC) in a series of petitions before the apex court and the matter is expected to be heard soon as the court has resumed from vacation.

If the SC confirms with Bombay High Court’s decision of reducing wards to 227, the delimitation exercise needs to be carried out and the entire process could take at least 3-4 months and if SC sticks to keeping earlier ward count of 236, then voters list needs to be updated and existing delimitation can be used.

Another issue which became a hurdle in announcement for civic body polls was the Other Backward Caste (OBC) reservation in local body polls. Dozens of petitions are pending before the SC on the issue of the reservation. In a July 2022, verdict, SC directed the state election commission to not postpone and conduct elections to 92 municipal councils and four municipal panchayats without OBC reservation.

Since there is no major breakthrough into the matter, it is expected that BMC polls might see no OBC reservation.

In 2017 BMC elections, out of a total of 227 seats, Shiv Sena won 84 seats while the BJP has bagged 82 after Uddhav Thackeray led party had decided not to contest the polls in alliance with its long-term ally. Congress had bagged 31 seats and NCP won nine seats and MNS settled with seven seats.

Also Read:NCP split: Here's a list of the MLAs, MLCs and MPs that attended Sharad Pawar's meeting

(Edited by : Sangam Singh)

First Published:Jul 7, 2023 2:58 PM IST