Rajasthan: At this ward, you just need 9 votes to win

Jaipur: Nine votes , that’s all you need to win the polls from ward 8 of Nasirabad municipal board. The ward has just 16 voters.

The newly formed board with 20 wards having 957 voters is the smallest urban local body in the state. Voting will be held on November 16.

Nasriabad town, having a population of 56,000, is under the administration of cantonment board.

People of the town had been demanding a municipality since long, and finally a colony within the town was declared a municipal board by the then BJP government in 2018.

Ajmer district Congress chief Bhoopendra Singh Rathore, however, said having just a colony as a civic board within the town serves no purpose.

“Living under the cantonment administration is not easy. One cannot sell land nor does any bank give loan. Former CM Vasundhara Raje, who had promised creation of a municipality, was not successful in converting the entire cantonment land into a municipal body. However, the party managed to declare one colony within the town as a municipal board. It has nothing to do with Nasirabad town. This has actually served no purpose as a person with a 10-member family can become a ward member,” said Rathore.

He said the board would face acute funds crunch after elections. “There is no infrastructure to set up an office and the budget will be used paying salaries of employees,” said Rathore.

The BJP government has cheated people of Nasirabad and they will pay the price in the elections,” said Rathore.

The BJP blamed the Congress government for the odd distribution of ward boundaries. Ajmer BJP district rural president B S Saraswat said, “The long-standing demand of the people to make Nasriabad a municipality was addressed by Raje. We tried to include the cantonment area but it wasn’t possible. We still created the board and it is up to the Congress government to expand it. When they knew that the area was less populated, they should have come up with only five to 10 wards.”