By Express News Service BENGALURU: The inordinate delay in redrawing the wards had been worrying the corporators. Now that the draft notification of the delimitation of BBMP wards is out, they are more worried. For, the draft has left many Congress corporators without their wards, including former Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun (Jayanagar). She is not the only one, according to Congress councillors, at least 25 of them have been left out. They claim that this is a political strategy of the BJP, which is in ruling in the state and in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Council also. While they fear that if the draft is approved unopposed, they will be dropped out, they also see a ray of hope with the Karnataka High Court continuing hearing of a PIL of the State Election Commission on delimitation of wards on Wednesday (March 4). “Many areas like former mayors Gangambike and Padmavathi’s wards have been merged with the neighbouring wards because of the redrawing of the boundaries. It is not just Congress but even JD(S) councillors find no place. And in an attempt to create a balance in the wards, an imbalance in the Council is being created and this is not acceptable. It is injustice and sheer show of power of the BJP,” said a Congress councillor on Tuesday, soon after the draft notification was made public. The state government has issued the draft, a day ahead of the High Court hearing and has given 15 days time for people to study the 61-page document and file their objections. Abdul Wajid, Leader of the Opposition in the BBMP Council said: “It is quite natural that when ward boundaries are redefined, some wards will be merged and it was also obvious that most of the wards will be of the Congress as the BJP is in power. We will hold a meeting in the coming days to assess the draft and file objections. So far it looks like the draft is not just for the benefit of the people and the BBMP.” He questioned the timing of the notification, just ahead of the court hearing. The BJP councillors, on the other hand, justified that the exercise was done based on the population and ward size.The current council’s term expires in September. WHAT IS DELIMITATION? In delimitation, the government redraws the boundaries of constituencies based on population. This is done because some wards would have got large population compared with the time when they were created. Through delimitation, the government attempts to make all the wards uniform based on their population. The delimitation is done as per the 2011 Census. This exercise has now been done after a gap of 10 years. The State Election Commission has to prepare a fresh voters’ list based on the delimitation. SOME WARDS MISSING The entire notification is put out on public domain. Some of the wards of the present corporators which have been redrawn include those of former mayor Padmavathi from Prakash Nagar ward, Sampath Raju from DJ Halli, S Keshav Murthy from Maha-lakshmipura, Muzahid Pasha from Siddapura and Shivaraj from Jayachamaraja Nagar ward.

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