1 week Ago By Express News Service
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Former Union minister and BJP leader V Muraleedharan on Saturday alleged that the LDF government was trying to manipulate ward boundaries to subvert the upcoming local body elections. He accused the CPM-led ruling front of resorting to ward delimitation as a cover to hide their poor governance. Speaking after inaugurating the Corporation office march by the BJP to protest against the alleged manipulation in ward delimitation, Muraleedharan said that the LDF government was attempting to manipulate the electoral landscape fearing rejection from the voters.
He alleged that the CPM would go to any extent to split and alter the boundaries to win the elections. Muraleedharan pointed out that the CPM-led local bodies miserably failed on several fronts, including waste management, stray dog issue, water-logging and the poor condition of roads. He also criticised the Opposition for keeping mum on the issues and accused the Opposition party of ignoring the ward delimitation fraud and cooperating with the ruling government in passing bills related to the delimitation without any debate in the State Assembly.
He also highlighted the recent controversies surrounding the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation Mayor and the Kannur District Panchayat President and said that the state had been witnessing abuse of power. The BJP on Saturday launched a stiff protest against the move of the State Election Commission and the state government to conduct ward delimitation alleging it was politically motivated and aimed at benefiting the ruling party. Party district president and Poojappura councillor V V Rajesh said that the BJP had decided to move the High Court seeking an intervention in the matter.
Criticising the decision to add one new ward to each local body, Rajesh alleged that it was being done in a way that it only favoured the CPM. He said that restructuring the ward boundaries would create significant administrative problems for the public. He said that the Aadhaar and TC numbers would have to be updated for a considerable section of the population and completing those changes would take years and waste the valuable time of thousands of officials.
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