Delhi government notifies delimitation of 272 wards

New Delhi: The geographical boundaries of the municipal wards have been redrawn with the State Election Commission notifying the delimitation report on Tuesday. Of the 272 wards, boundaries of 150 wards have been changed. The many Assemblies which have undergone change include Vikaspuri, which will now have seven wards and Greater Kailash which will have three wards. Earlier, each Assembly had four wards under its jurisdiction. The previous delimitation exercise was carried out in 2007 had a population size of 40,000. This time it has been increased to 60,000.

The delimitation is going to throw a major challenge before the political parties, who will be battling it out in the coming civic polls. One of the major tasks for the political parties will be to study the new nomenclature of the wards. Once they study it, they will do a detailed analysis of the voter profile of that ward. Once this done, parties will then discuss with their local units voter profile to study caste, colour and other community combinations. Once this data is ready, the party leadership in consultation with their local units will work out on strategies to target larger vote banks by nominating candidates of dominating caste and communities in those wards.

This will be first time that Aam Aadmi Party will be contesting on all 272 municipal wards after its electrifying victory in the Assembly Elections in 2015, in which it won 67 of the 70 seats. The Congress, which ruled the city for 15 years could not even open its account and the saffron party was able to win just three seats. As the saffron brigade is in power in all the three municipal bodies for the past 10 years and faces anti-incumbency as a major threat, it is critical for the party to make the best out of the new municipal wards to stay in power. For Congress, which is down and out, it will be a testing time to make a comeback in Delhi’s political scene. Ditto is with AAP, as municipal results can become a referendum on AAP government’s performance in the city.

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said that the party’s senior leaders will now review the notified wards’ structure. A senior AAP functionary said that the party will sweep the polls as BJP-run corporations have failed to develop the civic infrastructure in the past 10 years. “Now people have seen our governance. We will provide transparency and upgrade the civic infrastructure in the city, which has been in shambles,” the functionary said. A senior local Congress leader Chhatar Singh said, “The recent bypoll results were just a trailer for both BJP and AAP. BJP could win only three wards and AAP could manage only five of the 13 wards. And our party won as many as five wards.”

With delimitation, the voter profile of many constituencies has changed. For instance, a ward in Okhla which was dominated by Muslims, now sees a slight increase in the Hindu vote bank. That means if Congress and AAP field Muslim candidates, BJP in all likelihood will cash in on the Hindu vote bank.

In constituencies which have a sizeable number of Jats and Gujjars, in case two parties field candidates from a particular community, there is likelihood that the saffron brigade will field a candidate from the other community to get maximum mileage.

Even the political parties will have to start a campaign to educate their polling agents about their new polling stations. The boundaries of the new wards have been drawn in accordance with metro lines, railway lines, roads, major drains and rivers, so political parties will have to ensure that their candidates campaign within the new boundaries.

This time, special drives will be carried out by the parties to woo voters from Uttaranchal, Purvanchal, jhuggi clusters and unauthorised colonies who form the chunk of the votes in the national capital. In municipal elections, this chunk of vote bank plays a critical role in deciding the winner.

In the NDMC, Burari and Bawana constituencies will have six wards each; Narela, Rithala, Mundka and Kirari will have five wards each and Adarsh Nagar, Tri Nagar, Wazirpur, Model Town, Chandni Chowk, Ballimaran, Karol Bagh, Moti Nagar and Rajinder Nagar will have three wards each in their jurisdiction.

In the SDC, both Vikaspuri and Matiala Assembly constituencies will have seven wards each in their jurisdiction. While the Badarpur seat will have six wards, Okhla constituency is set to have five wards. Among the constituencies which are likely to have three wards are Rajouri Garden, Hari Nagar, Tri Nagar, Jangpura, Kasturba Nagar, Malviya Nagar, R K Puram, Mehrauli, Ambedkar Nagar (SC), Greater Kailash, Kalkaji  and Tuglakabad.

In the EDMC, Gokalpur (SC), Mustafabad and Karawal Nagar Assembly segments will have five wards each while Gandhi Nagar will now have just three wards.
The nomenclature of the remaining wards is not going to change.