MARGAO
Claiming the delimitation of panchayat wards in Village Panchayat of Curtorim is done in a capricious and arbitrary manner without following any procedures or criteria, former Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenco has appealed to the State Election Commissioner to carry out the exercise afresh by giving an opportunity to the village panchayat.
Saying the entire process could take a long time, Reginaldo has requested the authorities to maintain status quo and hold the upcoming panchayat elections as per the existing wards.
In his correspondence to the Joint Mamlatdar II, ERO of Village Panchayat Curtorim, the ex-MLA said a cursory glance at the delimitation of Curtorim Panchayat is sufficient to show that in some wards like Ward No. 3 and Ward No. 10 votes are just about 1/3rd those of votes in Ward No. 2, 8 and 9. The discrepancy is so huge that it cannot be rationally explained. Similar is the case with other wards with huge differences in number of votes between different wards, he added.
He said no rules have been notified under which the delimitation has been carried out. “In the absence of such rules, the only recourse available is to follow the guidelines and methodology mandated for the delimitation of Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies which were created in terms of the Constitution (84th Amendment Act 2001) and the Constitution (87th Amendment Act, 2003),” he added.
Reginaldo pointed out some wards are formed in such a way that they are disconnected with no geographical contiguity with voters in other areas. In addition, some existing wards have been combined or merged to create a single ward with number of voters going upto 1,599, he added.
“It is imperative that a map of the village must be annexed to the delimitation so that each ward is separately demarcated. This has not been done possibly to avoid showing that the wards are disconnected and comprise of voters from different areas without any link with the ward,” he said.
Panchayat lodges objections, wants original ward numbers maintained
MARGAO: The Curtorim village panchayat has officially lodged its strong objection to the delimitation exercise carried out by the State Election Commission, with the panchayat urging the Electoral Registration Officer to keep the original ward numbers and maintain the wards as per the previous delimitation.
An official objection was lodged with the office of the Electoral Registration Officer on March 3 after a meeting of the panchayat body, wherein the controversial delimitation exercise was discussed at length before taking the decision to lodge the objection.
In the letter, the panchayat pointed out that the ongoing delimitation exercise has changed the ward numbers, fearing that the change in numbers will affect the reservation of the wards.
