The Gujarat State Election Commission today announced fresh delimitation of wards for the municipal corporations of Ahmedabad and Rajkot ahead of the civic body polls scheduled to be held in October this year.
So far, the election commission has announced delimitation for four cities, including Surat, Vadodara, Ahmedabad and Rajkot. Notification for Bhavnagar and Jamnagar are also expected soon.
As per the notification issued by the commission, Ahmedabad city will now have 48 wards instead of the current tally of 64.
Similarly, number of wards in Rajkot have been reduced to 18 against the earlier 22 wards.
At present, there are three councillors per ward in these civic bodies. Thus, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has 192 councillors (64x3), while the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) has 66 (22x3).
As per the new rules for the civic bodies announced by state government earlier, there should be four seats per ward, which is one more than the present tally of three per ward.
After the announcement of delimitation today, the number of councillors per ward has gone up to four, with two seats reserved for women in each ward.
Now, AMC will have 192 councillors (48x4) while RMC will have 72 councillors (18x4).
As per the Gujarat government's earlier decision to keep 50 per cent seats reserved for women, AMC will have 96 seats reserved for women corporators, while Rajkot gets 36 seats reserved seats for women candidates, including SC, ST and OBC nominees.
The delimitation process for civic bodies has been commenced by the state government as per the 2011 census data.
As per the notification, out of the 192 seats in AMC, total 117 seats are kept under reserved category while 75 are general seats. Out of the 117 reserved seats, 96 seats are for women, 20 for SC candidates, two for ST and 19 for OBC.
In RMC, out of the 72 seats in AMC, total 44 seats are kept under reserved category while 28 are general seats. Out of the 44 reserved seats, 36 seats are for women, 5 for SC candidates, one for ST and seven for OBC.
Out of total eight municipal corporations in the state, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Rajkot, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar and Surat are scheduled to go for polls in October this year, while in Gandhinagar it would take place next year. Polls in Junagadh were held last year.
