New Delhi, Mar 9 (PTI) All three existing municipal corporations in Delhi will be "dissolved" after these civic bodies are officially reunified into a single body, a senior civic official claimed.

All three corporations in the city are currently ruled by the BJP, which has been controlling the civic bodies since the trifurcation of the erstwhile unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) in 2012.

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Delhi has three civic bodies -- North, South and East Delhi municipal corporations -- and the last civic polls in the city were held in April 2017.

The erstwhile MCD was governed under the DMC Act 1957 and it continued to be the legal basis for the three corporations since trifurcation.

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"In case of trifurcation, all three existing municipal corporations in Delhi will be dissolved the moment official notification is made," a senior civic official claimed.

"The election will have to be conducted within six months from the dissolution. Till the elections are held, the administration will be run totally by central government officers," he added.

Since trifurcation of the MCD, the NDMC and the SDMC have 104 wards each, while the EDMC has 64 wards.

The Centre plans to bring a bill in the budget session of Parliament to unify the three municipal corporations, the State Election Commission said on Wednesday, while deferring the announcement of election schedule for the civic bodies.

The SEC has to conduct elections before the expiry of the terms of the three corporations -- SDMC, NDMC and EDMC on May 18, May 19 and May 22.

The development drew a sharp reaction from AAP convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who wondered if Prime Minister Narendra Modi would "not conduct elections in the country now".

Meanwhile, A P Khan, convener of MCD Employees' Union on Wednesday claimed the intention to reunify the corporation suggests, "it was not difficult to do it earlier".

"Then why the Centre did not try to unify these corporations earlier? We have been wanting funds to pay the salaries and pensions of the employees of the corporations who have been struggling for the last few years to get their due salaries and pensions," he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)