The state election commission (SEC) of Delhi announced the schedule for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections 2022 today. The elections will take place on December 4 and the counting of votes will be held on December 7.

The SEC stated that the model code of conduct will come into force from today. Hoarding and banners used for the election campaign will be removed. As per the notification issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the number of MCD wards has come down to 250 this year from 272.

Delhi MCD election schedule

Issue of notification – November 7
Last date of filing nomination – November 14
Scrutiny of nomination- November 16
Last date for withdrawal of candidate- November 19
Date of polls- December 4
Counting of votes – December 7
Completion of the entire election process – December 15

Vijay Dev, Delhi State Election Commissioner stated out of those 42 seats for SC, 21 seats will be for SC women. 104 seats will be reserved for women, he said.

Delhi Election Commission said that nominations will start in Delhi from November 7 and the last date to file nominations is November 14. As per the EC, out of 70 assembly seats, elections will take place in 68 seats. No polling could be held on two seats due to the death of candidates.

The EC has appointed Returning Officers and has taken the objections and suggestions of the public as well as political parties into consideration, by setting up polling booths at the ward level.

EC said immediate action will be taken against illegal hoardings and posters from today onwards. Loudspeakers will not be allowed from 10 pm to 6 am. The nomination of the candidates will be done from 10 am to 3 pm at 68 places. The police have also been instructed to provide proper security. Candidates can spend between Rs 5.75 lakhs and Rs 8 lakhs.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for delaying Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections in the capital. Sisodia in a press conference slammed the BJP government and asked them not to cry like Congress and said that there will be a big achievement for BJP if they even win 10 seats. If you have the courage then don’t run away, fight (contest MCD elections) with us, Sisodia added.

Sisodia came down heavily on BJP after Union Minister Smriti Irani accused AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal of depriving the MCD employees of Rs 13,000 crores. Kejriwal had earlier in the day conducted a press conference in which he expressed outrage over the postponement of municipal corporation elections in the national capital, claiming that doing so weakens the democratic system.

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Kejriwal in a statement said that the date for MCD polls was to be announced at 5 p.m. on March 9, but the same day an hour ago, Centre wrote to State EC to combine all 3 civic bodies into one, and to delay polls. EC agreed to do so. The State Election Commissioner must reveal if he was threatened (by Centre) with ED, I-T, CBI raids, or has been given a post-retirement role after April. he added.

Responding to Kejriwal’s statement, Irani said Kejriwal has deprived the people of Delhi of the strongest unit of Democracy, of its funds, adding, they (AAP) are requested to allow development work to be done till the slums of the poor, let the reform work be done.

The MCD election dates are yet to be issued by the Centre, according to the State Election Commissioner, who is investigating certain legal objections presented by the central government. The Centre intends to restructure the MCD by combining Delhi’s three municipal corporations.

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Union Home Minister Amit Shah introduced the Citizenship Amendment Bill or CAB in the Lok Sabha today, amid stiff opposition. The Congress charged that the Bill is “nothing but a targeted legislation over minority people of our country”.

Amid huge ruckus Amit Shah said the Bill doesn’t contradict any article of the Constitution and “isn’t even 0.001% against minorities”. “The allegation that this bill will take away rights of Muslims is wrong,” he stressed.

The Home Minister also accused the Congress of “dividing the country on the basis of religion” and said the CAB will only rectify the mistakes of the past.

The Bill revives the two-nation theory, Asaduddin Owaisi told the House.

Saugata Roy of the Trinamool called the Bill “divisive and unconstitutional”, which violates Article 14 of the constitution. “This law is against everything our founding fathers including Dr Ambedkar envisioned,” Roy said.

The contentious Bill, which got the Union Cabinet’s go-ahead last week, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act 1955 so that non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, who were “forced or compelled to seek shelter in India due to persecution on the ground of religion”, become eligible for Indian citizenship, that too after six years of residence in the country.

The original Citizenship Act stated that individuals seeking Indian citizenship should have lived in the country for 11 of the last 14 years. The Bill also promises protection from proceedings of illegal migration.

There are, however, two exceptions to the Bill. The CAB will not apply to areas under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution – which deals with autonomous tribal-dominated regions in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. It will also not apply to states that have the inner-line permit regime (Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram). These exceptions didn’t exist in the Bill’s earlier version.

The Bill has been slammed by several opposition parties as “communal and divisive” with the Congress threatening to challenge the proposed legislation in the Supreme Court. “Citizenship can’t be given on the basis of religion,” they say.

Many opposition leaders, including Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, have termed the amendment as discriminatory saying “religion can never be a reason for citizenship”. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav has said they will oppose the Bill at all costs.

“If you give citizenship to all communities, we will accept it. But if you discriminate on the basis of religion, we will fight it,” Ms Banerjee has warned.

Shiv Sena, the BJP’s partner for over three decades before they parted ways following power tussle in Maharashtra, is also calling the Bill “vote bank politics”.

In an editorial in its mouthpiece Saamana, the Shiv Sena has questioned whether “selective acceptance” of Hindu illegal immigrants will act as a trigger for a religious war in the country.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will also oppose the Bill.

The opposition, sources say, has decided to demand that the Bill be sent to a select committee for scrutiny.

The influential All Assam Students’ Union (AASU), Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba-Chatra Parishad (AJYCP), Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS), literary organisation Asam Sahitya Sabha (ASS) have been agitating against the Bill.

The North East Students’ Organisation has announced an 11-hour shutdown on Tuesday against what they call an attempt to destroy the Assam Accord of 1985, which fixed March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date for deportation of all illegal immigrants irrespective of their religious background. Several markets are already closed in Guwahati amid shutdown calls by various organisations.

While the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) is protesting at Jantar Mantar, Badruddin Ajmal, its MP from Dhubri (Assam), is voicing the front’s opposition to the Bill in the Parliament premises.

The CAB has been one of the key election promises of the BJP both in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Union minister Prakash Javadekar has assured that the government has taken care of the interests of everyone. “People will welcome it as it is in the interest of the nation,” he told reporters.

The Narendra Modi government had introduced the bill in its previous tenure too, even gaining the Lok Sabha’s approval, but could not introduce it in the upper house due to protests in the northeast. The legislation eventually lapsed.

In the second attempt, the draft legislation is expected to again sail through Lok Sabha, where the BJP has a majority and is unlikely to face serious hurdles in Rajya Sabha as the ruling party has often managed the support of parties like the BJD, TRS and YSR Congress for its flagship agenda.

The NDA’s current strength in Rajya Sabha is 102 including the BJP’s 81. Of the 245-member Rajya Sabha, the current strength is 238 for which 120 is the majority mark. The BJP is looking to garner the support of AIADMK, which has 11 members; BJD, 7; TRS, 6; YSRCP, 2, and two Independents.

The Janata Dal (United) or JD (U), a BJP ally which had walked out of the House when the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha, will support the Bill after an assurance from the Union home minister that the centre will safeguard interests of the Northeastern states.

Similarly, the BJD is ready to back the new Bill since it exempted tribal areas in the northeast region, sources said.