Bypolls: Councillors ward limits likely to change

With bypolls to 13 wards scheduled on May 15, boundaries of constutuencies of the councillors are likley to be altered as the MCD's delimitation exercise of redrawing municipal ward boundaries in the city is likely to be completed soon.
At present, there are 272 municipal wards, an average of four in each of the 70 Assembly constituencies.
Two constituencies - New Delhi and Delhi Cantonment - have their own municipal bodies.
Delhi State Election Commissioner Rakesh Mehta said the process of delimitation of wards is at an advanced stage.
"The dilimitation exercise is aimed at rebalancing the ward boundaries for acutable representation of people in different constituencies. The simple principle for delimitation is 'one person one vote'.

"After the delimitation process, the number of wards and boundaries in a constituency will change because of the population variation," Mehta said.

"Politically it makes a difference. As in a councillor who has worked for long in his ward, suddenly the voter configuration will change.
"According to Census 2011, Delhi's population has incraesed from 11 million to 16.8 million, which means on an average the 272 wards should have 61,000 voters," he said.
"The dilimitation exercise till now shows that people have migrated from one part of the city to another. Survey has revealed that population has reduced in areas like Chandni Chowk, Ballimaran, Karol Bagh, Sadar Bazaar, Matia Mahal and there is a significant increase in popuation in Dwarka, Burari, Badarpur, Vikaspuri, Matiala. Population in these parts have increased between 1,50,000 per Assembly constituency to 4 lakh," Mehta said.

According to him, people have migrated to the western and southern regions of Delhi in search for a better quality life. The migration has led to a complete imbalance in the population distribution across different wards.