Jaipur: The delimitation draft for the Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC) restructured around 35 wards in JMC Greater and an equal number in JMC Heritage, predominantly represented by Congress councillors. Congress leaders claimed that the BJP govt strategically altered the ward boundaries, targeting areas with significant minority voter populations to diminish the party’s electoral chances in the upcoming elections. Explaining the BJP’s alleged strategy, a Congress leader said the govt formed a ward by merging the entire Ward Number 56 of JMC Heritage with selected areas from Ward Number 55 and Ward Number 63. Now, going by the trend, the areas under Ward 55 and Ward 63, included in the newly formed ward, have a large number of BJP voters, while Ward Number 55 was traditionally a Congress stronghold. Post-delimitation, the number of voters from the portions of Ward 55 and 63 included in the new ward is almost equal to the number of voters in the erstwhile Ward 55. “Although traditionally there are Congress strongholds in these erstwhile three separate wards, post-delimitation now it would be a neck-to-neck fight in the newly formed ward. A few other wards have also been delimited in this way. We apprehend BJP would field a dummy independent candidate from the Muslim community in these wards to ensure the defeat of the Congress candidate,” said Yunus Qureshi, a Congress leader from the Kishapole area and the sitting secretary of the party’s minority cell. Congress leaders alleged that such manipulations took place in wards under the Kishanpole and Adarsh Nagar constituencies. “In the Hawa Mahal constituency also, the state govt made this effort. But the problem is in several wards of the Ramgunj area they could not manipulate owing to the strong presence of the minority community in these localities,” stated Akram Qureshi, another local Congress leader. A senior Congress leader stated that interestingly, in most wards under the JMC Greater, which are mostly BJP’s citadel, no changes were made during the delimitation process. “The way the delimitation has taken place, Congress shall consider itself lucky if they manage to win at least 30 to 35 seats out of the 150 wards in the forthcoming general election,” stated a Congress councillor, who recently switched sides to the BJP, on conditions of anonymity.
BJP govt alters ward boundaries, targets minority voters: Congress | Jaipur News
