Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
The final prabhag plan gazette prepared for the upcoming municipal corporation elections went viral on social media early Saturday morning, well before it was officially released by the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC). By then, nearly every aspiring candidate had the document on their phones, even though the civic body had not yet published it.
Following widespread discussions online, the CSMC election branch decided to officially publish the maps and gazette on its website at 9 pm on the same day. However, officials remained silent on the key question, who leaked the gazette before its official release?
The state government had announced the schedule for municipal corporation elections, which stated that the final ward plan would be published between October 3 and 6. Accordingly, the State Election Commission handed over the finalised prabhag maps and gazette text to the CSMC administration late on the night of October 2 for publication.
The election branch had assigned the printing of the gazette to a private printing press named “Bharat”. While interested candidates and former corporators were anticipating the publication on the official municipal website on October 3, the gazette and maps were not made available by the CSMC. Surprisingly, on the morning of October 4, many candidates were already in possession of the 66-page gazette. Political party workers and aspiring corporators began sharing it among themselves to analyse which localities were included or excluded from their final wards. The gazette is dated October 3. When Daily Lokmat sent a copy of this leaked gazette to Deputy Commissioner (Election) Vikas Nawale, he confirmed its authenticity, but he was unable to explain how it was leaked before the official release.
Publication on Oct 6
Earlier on Saturday evening, deputy commissioner Vikas Nawale had informed media representatives that the gazette and maps would be officially released by October 6, and a notification would be issued in newspapers as part of the formal process.
Maps and Gazette finally released at 9 pm
Later, speaking with the newspaper around 9 pm, Nawale confirmed that the gazette and maps were now being published on the municipal corporation’s official website. The details are of 115 divided into 29 prabhags.