Cuttack, Aug. 11: At least 20 sitting councillors of the civic body here, including twelve from the BJD, apparently cannot seek re-election from their own wards in the forthcoming elections of the corporation in February 2014.
Most of the seats have been reserved for women either from the general caste or from backward class or scheduled castes or scheduled tribes. Consequently, twelve BJD councillors, five Congress councillors, two BJP councillors and one Nationalist Congress Party councillor apparently cannot seek re-election from their respective wards.
“The final picture will emerge only after the state government issues a notification on our proposal on delimitation of wards and reservation,” Cuttack Municipal Corporation mayor Saumendra Ghose told The Telegraph today.
“The proposal, which was unanimously passed by the municipal council, was submitted to the government on July 31. The proposal included increasing the number of wards to 59 by creating five new wards by bifurcation of seven of the existing 54 wards. The notification is expected to be issued tomorrow,” the mayor said.
Official sources said the wards had been re-numbered after creation of the five new wards by division of wards 1, 2, 3, 21, 22, 52 and 53 with complete demographics of the 59 wards, including males, females, castes and communities.
“As 50 per cent of the wards are to be reserved for women, 30 of the 59 wards will be kept for them. In the same way, after reserving eight wards for women from backward class, three for scheduled caste women and one for scheduled tribe women, the rest 17 are to be reserved for general category women. The government is expected to issue the notification accordingly,” said Jaga Narayan Kuzur, officer in charge of the delimitation exercise.
“After receiving the delimitation and reservation notification, we will invite objections by August 20 and submit the proposal again for final notification by the government,” Kuzur said.
Official sources said if the notification was issued on the basis of the proposal, then 13 councillors would not be able to seek re-election from their ward as those had been reserved for general category women.
For example ward no. 4, which has been renumbered as ward 7, will now be reserved for women.
“On the day the municipal council passed the proposal, we had asked for details on the 59 wards with information on women population, scheduled caste and scheduled tribe population and other backward classes’ population to get an idea on the reservation of wards. But the councillors are yet provide it. So, I have no idea what would be the fate of my ward,” said Bijay Kumar Pradhan, BJC councillor of ward No 4.
Similarly, ward No. 32, which has been re-numbered as 36, will now be reserved for women from backward classes. “As on today, I have little idea about the fate of my ward. Things will be clear after the notification is issued by the government,” said Dharmananda Patra, sitting Congress councillor of ward No. 32.
Eight sitting councillors cannot seek re-election as their wards will now be reserved for women from backward classes, while four sitting councillors will not be able to seek re-election as their wards will now be reserved for scheduled caste women.
Another ward, which is reserved for scheduled tribe male, will henceforth be reserved for scheduled tribe female.