PUNE: At least nine municipal corporations in the state, where elections are due in March, may not get a new elected body before the deadline and will eventually be governed by administrators.
Factors such as the Covid pandemic, delay in declaring ward delimitation and legal tangle relating to the Other Backward Class (OBC) reservation have put a speed breaker in holding elections as per the regular schedule.
Leading municipal corporations such as the ones in Pune, Brihanmumbai, Pimpri Chinchwad, Nagpur and Nashik will be governed by the administrator till the civic polls are held.
If the polls are not conducted before the deadline, over half of the 27municipal cor porations in the state will be without elected representatives in March.
These corporations will join five civic bodies —Kalyan-Dimbivali, Vasai-Virar, Kolhapur, Aurangabad and Navi Mumbai — which already have administrators. The tenure of the elected members in these local self governing bodies got over in 2020.
“If we consider the nor mal schedule, around 35 days are needed between declaration of the election and the day of voting. Considering the current situation, it seems difficult to have a new elected body by the second week of March,” said Sunil Parkhi, an expert of civic law and former municipal secretary of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).
After the existing body is dissolved, the meetings of general body, standing committee, women and child welfare committee, law committee and the city improvement committee will not be held.
The administrators are expected to be at the helm of affairs for at least a month or two; considering that the elections will be held in April or May. “Even if the administrator is appointed, the elected members will continue to raise people’s issues,” said Ganesh Bidkar, leader of the house in the PMC.
“The appointment of administrator will be shared with the incumbent mayor in the first week of March and the municipal commissioner will take over as administrator of the Nashik Municipal Coporation (NMC) from March 15 if the code of conduct is not declared by then,” said Raju Kute, town secretary of the NMC.
The term of the Malegaon Municipal Corporation ends on June 13 this year and there is no need to appoint an administrator, as the polls are likely to take place before the term ends. Elections for Dhule and Ahmednagar municipal corporations are due in December 2023 and Jalgaon in September 2023.
In Solapur, 113 corporators, up from 102, will be elected due to the increase in population. In case of Solapur, mayor Shrikanchana Yannam iseyeing to preside over the special meeting to be called for budget presentation.
Since the budget will be the last one for the current body, the ruling BJP corporators are likely to ensure that they get more funds for their respective wards.
(With inputs by Tushar Pawar in Nashik & Abhijit Patil in Kolhapur)
BJP to raise objections over PMC draft delimitation plan
BJP leaders in the PMC on Thursday said they would raise objections over the draft delimitation plan of the civic wards.
Ganesh Bidkar, leader of the house in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), claimed that the wards has been carved out abruptly without following the natural boundaries, road layouts and air distance. “All this led to the division of localities and housing societies in two wards. The BJP will explorethe leg al waysto raise objections,” he said.
People’s representation inthe PMC after the civic elections would be with 173 corporators — nine more than those elected in the current civic body — under the new three-ward system, the draft ward delimitation plan announced on Tuesday indicated. The next civic body will have a total of 58 wards,17 more than 41 in 2017.
Bidkar claimed that the MVA partners were responsible for the abrupt division of the wards. “The MVA’s attempts will be in vain. It will not be able to defeat BJP in the coming civic polls. The BJP will win over100 seats,” he said.
Bidkar said, “The MVA partners are well aware that they can’t win the seats unless the wards are remoulded.
Preliminary survey has pointed that some localities are divided in two neighbouring wards. Even the newly merged villages are listed under the adjacent wards, instead of being a single ward. We will raise the objections to seek explanation as to why the guidelines have not been followed.”
