When the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC on Tuesday conducted its long-awaited lottery draw for the reservation of 227 wards for the upcoming civic polls, the exercise turned the city’s political map upside down. Overnight, several seasoned corporators lost the chance to contest from the seats they had represented for years under a system that randomly reshuffles reserved wards every election cycle.

The draw conducted on a public platform and overseen by civic and State Election Commission officials determines which wards will be reserved for women, Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Every five years, before each municipal election, the state government carries out the draw to reassign these categories across wards.

The lottery system

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