Maharashtra Assembly: The decision to increase the number of wards in the Mumbai civic body reversed, Shiv Sena protested

The Maharashtra Assembly on Wednesday passed a bill reversing the previous Maha Vikas Aghadi government's decision to increase the number of wards in the Mumbai civic body from 227 to 236. The Congress and the Samajwadi Party supported the amendment to reverse the decision of the previous government where the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation ward elections are due. The NCP and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena opposed it, citing the Supreme Court's direction to maintain status quo.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis clarified that the apex court's direction was in another matter related to quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs). He said that our ordinance is to increase the number of wards from 236 to 227. There is no legal impediment. Shiv Sena MLA Aaditya Thackeray said that the bill is as unconstitutional as the government but Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said that in a democracy, numbers matter. We have majority. We have not acted unconstitutionally. Shinde also accepted MLA Sada Sarvankar's demand for an Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) inquiry into the previous government's decision to increase the number of wards.

The CM said that even though he was the urban development minister in the previous Uddhav Thackeray-led government, policy making is always a collective decision. Amin Patel (Congress) said that the delimitation of the ward was done to benefit a particular party and it was not in the interest of the citizens of Mumbai. Rais Sheikh of the Samajwadi Party said that the delimitation of wards was a manipulation to help a particular party. He claimed that this was done to target the corporators of other parties, who have worked for many years. Both Patel and Sheikh did not name any party. Amit Satam (BJP) said that there was an increase of 3.87 per cent in the population in the 2011 Census and since it was a low growth the number of wards was not increased in 2017.