HC clears decks for Gurgaon municipal polls

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday vacated the stay on the election process for the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG).

The high court bench of justice Mahesh Grover and justice Shekher Dhawan passed the order after state’s additional advocate general, Lokesh Sinhal informed the court that a formal notification on boundaries of 35 wards had been issued.

Sinhal said the number of wards was brought down from 35 to 32 last year in view of Census figures of 2011, which estimated city’s population below 10 lakh.

He added that as per a government communication, cities with a population of less than 10 lakh or over 8 lakh were to be allotted 32 wards.

However, in view of the fact that a door-to-door survey in 2010 had found that more than 10 lakh people lived in the city, a fresh survey was conducted by the MC in which it was again found that the population was more than 11 lakh, he said.

Hence, it was decided to keep the number of wards at 35, Sinhal told the court, refuting allegations of carving out wards and re-fixing boundaries on “political considerations”, as alleged by the petitioners.

The high court bench while asking the petitioner to challenge the notification, if it was not satisfied with the boundaries, posted the matter for hearing on October 13 and vacated the stay on the process of conduct of MCG elections.

The petitioners had challenged notifications clearing the decks for the redrawing of wards and made a strong argument for reducing the number of wards. However, the MCG later decided to the keep the number of wards at 35 as per the fresh door-to-door survey and started the process of redrawing the wards.

“The haphazard manner of bordering and shifting of the boundary of wards clearly spells out the mindset of the official respondents, who appear to be prejudicially inclined to help a particular political party, in areas having predominantly known leanings, have been included to whittle down opposition pockets (sic),” the petitioner read.

The petition argued that since the number of wards remained unchanged, there was no need to redraw their boundaries or limits.

PARVEEN KUMAR/HT FILE PHOTO Even before the court could decide on the delimitation issue concerning the MC elections, some BJP leaders put up posters in anticipation of being given tickets for the polls.