PANAJI
The State Election Commissioner, W V Ramanamurthy, IAS (Retd), has initiated the process of delimitation of wards in Goa's 180-odd village panchayats and has appointed the mamlatdars and joint mamlatdars of all the talukas as electoral registration officers (EROs) to execute the process in their respective jurisdictions.
Panchayat elections are due in the State months after the Assembly election concludes in 2022.
In a notification issued earlier this week Ramanamurthy has designated the electoral roll of the Goa Legislative Assembly as of January 1, 2021 as the basis to form the village panchayat wards.
Geographical contiguity and natural boundaries have to be given due consideration in the wards demarcation process, the notification said.
The EROs have been asked to complete the exercise for all panchayats in their jurisdiction and furnish their reports to the SEC latest by December 15 this year.
The EROs have also been asked to prepare ward-wise village panchayat maps simultaneously which must be submitted along with the final proposal.
Assigning voters to each of the wards is a process which will be conducted later on the basis of the electoral roll of the Goa legislative assembly with January 1, 2022 as the qualifying date.
Delimitation exercises in Goa are generally fraught with controversy as State level politicians in power tend to influence the process through bureaucrats charged with the task.
Earlier this year, a similar delimitation process for the municipal polls ended up being challenged in the Bombay High Court, with quashed the reservation scheme for five of the 11 municipal councils holding it arbitrary.
The government was then forced to issue a fresh notification for reservation and continue the election process.
