MUMBAI, Feb. 16 -- After it came across incidents of politically motivated interference in ward formation and delimitation in the recently held local body polls, the State Election Commission (SEC) has decided to ask the state government to constitute a Delimitation Commission for the formation of wards. Around five states including Kerala, already have such commissions, which have autonomous powers and are headed by retired IAS officers. The SEC has begun the process of drafting the bill for this, which could be introduced in the state legislature if the state government gives its assent. The SEC is proposing that the commission be headed by a retired IAS officer of the rank of additional chief secretary. Currently, the power to decide ward boundaries lies with the state government. "The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government under Uddhav Thackeray amended the existing laws and appropriated the powers of ward boundary formation from the SEC for itself," said an SEC official. "It is of course subject to the final approval of the SEC, but the entire process is only two to three weeks, of which the SEC gets just a day or two to verify the boundaries. Also, the entire machinery at the district and tehsil level is under the control of the government, which means that the SEC is left with very little authority." The official added that an autonomous commission would have exclusive authority over delimitation and formation of the wards with no control exercised by either the government or the SEC. "This means it will also have ample time for the exercise," he said. The SEC reportedly moved the proposal after it found evidence of manipulation by several powerful politicians in the local bodies. "In some wards, the boundaries were shifted to ensure that particular parties and their leaders gained an advantage from the delimitation," said another SEC officer. State Election Commissioner Dinesh Waghmare said that the SEC was preparing the draft and would submit the proposal to the state government so that the challenges in delimitation were addressed. "The final decision has to be taken by the government," he said. The SEC has also decided to write to the ECI for a joint drive for the de-duplication of voters from the electoral rolls. "We will request them to share the tool used by them to de-duplicate voters on the basis of their identical photos," said Waghmare. "We are also in talks to develop our own tool with the help of the National Informatics Centre. Either way, we will be able to delete repeated voters." Waghmare said that the de-duplication exercise done by the SEC and local bodies in the recent local body polls was on the basis of names and gender and was found to be relatively ineffective. The SEC is also writing to the ECI to share the electoral rolls after every summary revision....