BMC draws lottery to reserve wards under OBC category

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Friday organised a lottery to reserve seats for the Other Backward Class (OBC) quota for the upcoming civic elections. The lottery was held at Bal Gandharva Mandir in Bandra (west) in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling allowing 27% reservation for OBCs.

On Friday, out of the 236 newly demarcated wards, a draw was held for 219 wards. Out of 219 wards, 63 wards were reserved for the OBC category. Of the 63 seats, 32 were reserved for women candidates under the OBC category. Out of 63 wards, 53 wards were not reserved for the OBC category in the last three civic elections.

The draw did not have any impact on the lottery undertaken for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) community on May 31. However, wards reserved for women in the general category changed. Out of the 156 wards under the general category, 77 have been reserved for women under the category.

Meanwhile, the reservation of 63 wards for OBC candidates has come as a setback for corporators, who were elected from these wards. Former mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar and former Congress corporator Sufiyan Vanu are among those whose wards have been reserved for women under the OBC category.

Congress corporator Asif Zakaria’s ward no 104 in Bandra west has also been reserved for women. “I have been a corporator for the last 15 years. I fought from 103 and 104 and now both are reserved for women and there is no ward for me to contest. I am not going to contest the elections this year,” he said.

Additionally, the ward of senior Congress corporator and opposition leader in BMC Ravi Raja (ward 182) has also been reserved for women.

BJPs group leader Prabhakar Shinde’s ward 109 has been reserved for women in the general category.

Former corporator Anjali Naik’s ward 151 is also reserved for general category women. “The draw has changed a lot. Wards earlier reserved for women are now reserved for men. Samruddhi Kate’s SC ward is now an OBC ward. Due to these changes, corporators will have to think of a strategy to contest from other wards,” said Naik.

The State Election Commission had opined that those wards which were not reserved for the OBCs in 2007, 2012 and 2017 should be accorded priority this time.

The OBC reservation draft will be published on the civic authority’s website on July 30. The final list of the OBC reservation will be declared by the BMC on August 13 and the window for submitting objections and suggestion is from July 30 to August 2. The civic elections are slated to be held before Diwali.