MCD intensifies efforts to increase voting percentage in LS polls
The civic body has roped in various commercial establishments, offering discounts to voters who cast their votes, said MCD in an official statement on Tuesday.
The Union Government today gave its nod to table a unification bill– “The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022”, to merge the three Municipal Corporations of Delhi (MCDs), in the ongoing budget session of the Parliament.
Reacting to the Centre’s decision, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Saurabh Bharadwaj said, “BJP is scared of losing MCD elections in Delhi.”
“Unification of 3 MCDs could have been done long back and could have been done anytime. This is simply a ploy to delay the pending elections of MCD. BJP is scared of losing MCD elections in Delhi,” Bharadwaj said in a tweet.
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The decision to merge the three MCDs was approved by the Union Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today.
As per government sources, the Bill for “The Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Act, 2022” is likely to be tabled in Parliament during the coming week and will unify the MCD by subsuming the existing three bodies.
Erstwhile, Delhi Municipal Corporation was trifurcated into three municipal corporations including South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), and East Delhi Municipal Corporation
(EDMC) in the year 2011, as per Delhi Municipal Corporation Amendment Act, 1911 (Delhi Act, 12 Of 2011).
Earlier, State Election Commissioner SK Srivastava informed that the Centre has deferred the announcement of polling dates for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) election after the central government raised a few issues that are
yet to be legally examined by the Election Commission.
He also informed that the Centre is planning to “unify” the three civic bodies and hence did not announce the poll schedule.
The trifurcation of the corporation was uneven in terms of the territorial divisions and revenue-generating potential of each corporation. As a result, there was a huge gap in the resources available to the three corporations, vis-a-vis their obligations.
The gap has widened over a period of time, increasing the financial difficulties of the three Municipal Corporations, leaving them incapacitated to make timely payment of salaries and retirement benefits to their employees and thereby creating
serious impediments in maintaining civic services in Delhi.
The gap has widened over a period of time, increasing the financial difficulties of the three Municipal Corporations, leaving them incapacitated to make timely payment of salaries and retirement benefits to their employees and thereby creating
serious impediments in maintaining civic services in Delhi.
Earlier, the government had postponed the announcement of the elections to the civic bodies hinting that these three bodies will be merged.
Calling the postponement of the MCD elections a threat to the nation’s democracy, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that this was the first time the Centre had written to the State Election Commission to postpone polls.
He also asked the government what were they doing all these years if they so urgently wanted to merge these civic bodies into one.
He also said that the government wrote to the EC a few hours before the poll schedules of the MCD elections were to be announced.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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