Lokmat News Network
Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
In view of the upcoming municipal corporation elections, the State Government's Urban Development Department (UDD) issued an order to the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) on June 12 to set ward boundaries and form prabhags (a cluster of wards). Earlier, the schedule, the draft of prabhag was to be submitted to the State Election Commission (SEC) between July 8 and 10. Accordingly, the election branch of the CSMC began the work. However, on Monday, the state government made a slight change to the scheduled programme. Now, the ward delimitation (and forming of prabhag) can be carried out until August 1 to 5, and the draft must be submitted not to the SEC, but to the UDD.
Since April 2020, no municipal elections have taken place. For the past five years, former corporators and aspiring candidates have been eagerly awaiting the elections. Last month, the Supreme Court directed the Maharashtra Government to issue an election notification within a month and conduct the elections within four months. In response, the UDD announced the prabhag delimitation schedule on June 12.
Following this, the CSMC’s election branch began working in a highly confidential manner. The plan is to create one prabhag comprising four wards. Based on the 2011 Census, enumerator group counts, on-site inspections, and Google Maps-based digital mapping were being carried out on a war footing. The target was to prepare and submit the draft of 29 prabhags to the SEC by July 8 to 10 (as per the old schedule).
However, a new order issued on June 23 altered this programme. According to the revised timeline, the municipal corporation must now prepare the prabhags between August 1 and 5 and submit them to the UDD (not the SEC). The Additional Chief Secretary and Principal Secretary of the UDD will then submit the prabhag plan to the Election Department between August 6 and 11. The State Election Commissioner is expected to publish the final draft of prabhags between October 3 and 6, stated the order.