Team Herald
PANJIM: The Bombay High Court in Goa is set to hear a petition on Tuesday filed by Sankhali Municipal Council Chairperson Rajesh Sawal and former Sarpanch Praveen Blaggan. The petition challenges the proposed decision to reduce the total number of wards in Sankhali Municipal Council from 13 to 12, as well as the uneven distribution of voters in the upcoming municipal elections scheduled for next month.
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The petitioners seek to quash and set aside the March 16, 2023 order by the Bicholim Taluka Mamlatdar and Electoral Registration Officer (ERO), which disposes of the objections raised by them against the draft delimitation proposal of the wards.
During the previous hearing last Wednesday, the petitioners asked for time to make their submissions. Sawal wants to run for ward XIII, while Blaggan was unable to contest the last municipal elections as his ward V was reserved for women candidates.
According to the petitioners, during the last election in 2018, Dharmesh Saglani had contested the decision of the government to fix 13 wards for the Sakhalim municipal council. Saglani wanted the government to limit the number of wards to 10, given that it is a class ‘C’ council.
He had also stated that assuming it is a ‘B’ class council, considering the population as per the 2011 Census is 13,641, the maximum number of wards should be 12.
At that time, the respondents, including the Bicholim Taluka Mamlatdar and the Director of Municipal Administration (DMA), told the court that Sankhali Municipal Council is a ‘B’ class municipality, and given the substantial increase in population after the 2011 Census, the number of councillors should be 13 and not 12.
The petitioners have also objected to the delimitation of six wards, namely, II, III, V, VI, VII, and VIII of the Sankhali municipal council. The voters per ward should be 720, and significant changes have been made in ward V, where there are 963 voters, whereas ward VII only has 467 voters.
