BJP alleges irregularities in delimitation of wards in Shimla

Himachal BJP has accused the ruling Congress party of conducting the delimitation of wards for next year's Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) elections in an "opaque" manner, and overlooking rules to benefit the ruling party.
"The entire process of delimitation smacks of politics and focused on suitability of ruling party which was afraid of defeat. The new wards are being created in the merged areasto benefit the ruling Congress," State BJP Vice-president Ganesh Dutt told mediapersons here today.
Describing the delimitation as being "politically motivated", Dutt said there was "no rationale method or standard norms" for creating new wards.
"A population criteria of 3000 has been fixed for creation of wards but it is not being followed and in order to benefit some builders, colonies developed by them at distant locations have been included in the new wards in urban areas while areas like Lambi Dhar, which are contiguous to Dhalli ward have not been included in spite of unanimous resolutions passed by SMC general house," he asserted.

"The authorities claimed that the de-limitation process was being done on the basis of2011 census butthe draft proposals clearly expose that no uniform pattern is being followedand no new ward is being created in old Shimla areas where BJP had won in the last MC elections," he alleged.
Dutt said that most of the ten new wards were being carved in merged areas while no landmarks have been identified to demark the area under the wards and the only consideration seems to be "how to benefit the ruling party".

He said BJP would file their objections before the Deputy Commissioner and Divisional commissioner "and if the need be the party would also knock the doors of the Court".

Governor Acharya Devvrat had promulgated the ordinance on September 4 last to amend the Himachal Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act to increase the number of wards upto 37 in two Municipal Corporations of Shimla and Dharamsala.
The delimitation of the wards is being done on the basis of 2011 census and effort is being made to have a new ward over 3000 average population.
In 2012 SMC polls, direct elections were held for the post of Mayor and Deputy Mayor but this time the elections would be held for 35 wards and mayor and deputy mayors would be elected by the councilors.