NEW DELHI: The fresh delimitation of municipal wards has made the civic body elections scheduled for April 5 more interesting. With the number of wards increased from 134 to 272 and size of each ward and number of electorate reduced considerably, political parties other than the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party some independents could win a few seats in this year's municipal elections.

Gearing up

Though senior Congress and BJP leaders might be hoping to do well in the polls, political parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party besides the Pragatisheel Jan Morcha, an alliance of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India, the Nationalist Congress Party, the Jan Morcha and the Janata Dal (Secular), are also gearing up for the elections in a big way.

Similarly various Residents' Welfare Associations (RWAs) having good influence in their housing societies and areas have also decided to enter into the fray, while independent candidates could also garner some votes. Independents would be mainly rebels of various political parties who might give hard time to official candidates by cutting into their votes. In the last municipal elections held in 2002, while five seats were won by independents, two seats were bagged by the Janata Dal (Secular) in the Walled City area, while the BSP managed to win one ward. Interestingly, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha also won two seats. After being denied tickets by BJP, Dayanand Chandila and his wife Dhanwati contested on JMM tickets to win with comfortable margins. However, later the husband-wife duo rejoined BJP.

But interestingly, while independent candidates bagged second positions in at least 10 seats, BSP also secured second position in more than half-a-dozen wards. In more than 30 seats the BSP, the Samajwadi Party and independent candidates garnered good number of votes. "Now with each ward having just around 50,000 votes, fight will become more interesting in this election. Earlier, in some wards there were more than one-lakh votes and several candidates won the election with comfortable margins, but now we might see some close contests," said a senior BJP leader. Before delimitation, there were just two municipal wards in each Assembly constituency, but now four wards have been carved out in each constituency. While the Pragatisheel Jan Morcha and the Samajwadi Party might dent Congress' chances in the Walled City and some South and East Delhi seats, BSP is likely to do well in areas where Schedule Caste voters live in good numbers, particularly in North-West, North-East Delhi besides in some pockets of South Delhi.

Colonies

Similarly, RWAs across the city have also joined hands to contest the MCD elections and they might garner good votes in South, East and West Delhi area where a large number of housing societies and planned colonies have come up. "Though they might not win many seats, but they will definitely eat into the vote shares of both the Congress and BJP, making the contest more interesting," said a senior Congress leader.

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