 "MCD polls in April 2022: SEC announces de-reservation of old wards")
A poll body here on Tuesday announced de-reservation of existing municipal wards in Delhi and reservation of new wards on rotation for specified categories ahead of the civic polls due in April this year.
The announcement was made in an official order issued by the State Election Commission (SEC) in Delhi.
Delhi has three municipal corporations -- North, South and East Delhi municipal corporations, and the last civic polls were held in April 2017.
While NDMC and SDMC have 104 wards each, EDMC has 64 wards.
According to the order, the number of wards reserved for SC category in the three corporations are -- NDMC (20), SDMC (15) and EDMC (11), proportionate to the population, or 19.38 per cent, 14.15 per cent and 16.58 per cent respectively.
East Delhi Mayor Shyam Sunder Aggarwal said the five-year term of the three Houses are ending in April 2022, adding, 50 per cent seats are reserved for women in civic bodies here.
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All three corporations are currently ruled by the BJP, the party which has also been controlling all the civic bodies since the trifurcation of the erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in 2012.
A senior official in the SEC said de-reservation of wards and reservation of new wards happens every five years.
However, there is "no fixed formula, and it can change every five years," he added.
According to the formula used for the year 2022, after arriving at a sequential listing of wards for SC category as per the formula, the ones places at odd positions (1st, 3rd, etc) are the ones reserved for SC women category while those on even positions (2nd, 4th, etc) are for SC category.
Of the remaining wards, arranged in sequence, those positioned on odd ones, belong to general category and those on even positions to women category.
In 2017 polls, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had bagged 181 of 270 wards in all three civic bodies, and had managed to increase its vote share by around 5 per cent. The party's vote share was 32.2 per cent in the 2015 Assembly election.
While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had finished on second spot, the Congress was a distant third in the elections results tally in 2017.