Delhi MCD poll schedule likely to be announced today; know details

The State Election Commission is expected to announce the municipal election schedule in Delhi at 4 pm on Friday, according to the official, days after a delimitation panel formed after the merger of three civic bodies into a unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) submitted its final report in October.

After the delimitation was completed, the focus shifted to the commission and the preparations for municipal elections. When the Centre announced that the civic bodies would be merged in March this year, the polls were abruptly postponed. In May, a unified MCD was formed. 

The elections were initially scheduled for April 2022. The commission held a press conference on March 9 to announce the schedule before announcing that the Centre had sent a note on unifying the three civic bodies.

Over the last week, the commission has appointed election officers and set a spending limit to prepare for the elections. According to an official, all 56,000 electronic voting machines have been rechecked and resealed in preparation for use.

On November 1, the commission finalised the list of polling places. Officials said there would be 13,667 polling stations, each with a maximum of 1,500 voters.

Congress party has filed a petition in Delhi HC against the delimitation order, calling it flawed and biased. 

The court has requested responses from the Centre, the Delhi government, and the delimitation panel appointed by the Centre in response to the petition challenging the final report on municipal ward demarcation.

The petitioner, Delhi Congress chief Anil Kumar, claimed that the formula used for the exercise was 'wholly, arbitrary, irrational, unintelligible, confusing, and suffered from various legal infirmities.' The case will be heard again in court on December 14.

Municipal wards in Delhi will have 40,000-89,000 voters, with seats distributed across 24 assembly constituencies undergoing major name and size changes.

On October 17, the Union Home Ministry accepted and notified the final delimitation report via two notifications, paving the way for Delhi municipal elections.

Ward boundaries have been defined to reduce population variation in each ward from 35,000-90,000 in the draught report to 40,000-89,000 in the final report. One of the main concerns raised was population variation.

Kanjhawala will be the smallest ward, with a population of 40,467, and Mayur Vihar Phase-1 will be the largest, with a population of 88,878.

The panel approved ward name changes based on feedback in 15 cases, while major population variation occurred in 24 assembly constituencies. Following the release of the draught report into the public domain, 1,720 objections were received.

To reduce the total number of wards from 272 to 250, 23 were removed, and one ward was added.

The population distribution across the 250 wards was based on the 2011 Census. The process was completed while ensuring that each ward within an assembly constituency had a well-defined boundary, such as a drain or a road.

Based on the feedback received on the draught report, the delimitation panel approved 15 name change proposals. Petitions to restore the original names were received in several cases.

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