Jaipur: With women set to occupy a third of the councillor seats in the now-merged Jaipur Municipal Corporation (JMC), the new reservation arithmetic has unsettled party camps and sharpened the battle for tickets. Fifty of the 150 seats in the municipal body are reserved for women across general, OBC, SC and ST categories.The reservation lottery for elections to the JMC was conducted Monday at Collectorate Auditorium under district election officer Sandesh Nayak.The new roster leaves only 100 wards outside the women-reserved bracket, intensifying competition among male aspirants and opening the door to a surge of candidates who end up contesting independently after being denied party tickets.Overall, the JMC reservation matrix earmarks 30 wards for OBCs, 20 for SCs and six for STs. Of the 50 seats reserved for women, 31 are for general-category candidates, 10 for OBC, seven for SC and two for ST.Two of the six wards in the ST category, for instance, are reserved for women, leaving only four wards open for parties to field male candidates. Women. meanwhile, are eligible to contest from seats not reserved for them as well.“Similar pressure is expected in OBC and SC categories, where ticket seekers will be squeezed by both caste and gender reservations,” a senior BJP worker said.Party insiders expect the resulting churn to push many aspirants into the fray as independents.Manoj Mudgal, a former JMC Heritage councillor from the Congress party who has now moved to BJP, agrees that the reservation pattern could lead to a large independent field. “The next JMC board is likely to see a surfeit of independent candidates,” he said.Former Pradesh Congress Committee minority cell secretary Yunus Qureshi made predictions along similar lines.“Since the number of wards left for prospective male candidates has come down to 100, there’s going to be tough competition ahead for tickets. The number of independent candidates will definitely increase as a result,” he said.The former JMC Greater board had seven independents among 150 councillors, while JMC Heritage had 11 among 100. Political workers now expect the merged 150-seat corporation to elect at least more than 20 independent councillors.Monday’s reservation lottery covered 12 other urban local bodies in Jaipur district, but JMC drew the maximum attention because of its altered power equation and crowded candidate race.
District election officer Sandesh Nayak conducts lottery for JMC election at Collectorate in Jaipur, Rajasthan on 17 August 2026
MLA Kalicharan Saraf during the lottery for JMC election at Collectorate in Jaipur, Rajasthan on 17 August 2026
