As many as 16 wards of the city have been reserved for women including General, OBC, SC and ST for the forthcoming urban body elections. The reservation process for 48 wards of Jagdalpur Municipal Corporation was completed by the Collector and District Election Officer Ankit Anand here on Monday.

The reservation of 20 wards was done by rotational process while the reservation of remaining 28 wards was done through lottery system. Among the 16 wards reserved for women, eight have been reserved for general, four for OBC, three for SC and one for ST, officials said.

Out of the total 48 wards, as many as 16 have been declared as general and both men and women candidates can try their electoral luck in these wards.

In the OBC category, six wards are open for men and women while five wards have been reserved in the category for women. In the SC category one ward is reserved for woman while on two wards both men and women can contest. In the ST category, five wards have been reserved for men and women while four wards have been reserved in this category for women.

The reservation process was completed under supervision of Collector Ankit Anand in the presence of Municipal Commissioner Ramesh Jaiswal and other officers. A large number of office-bearers of BJP and Congress besides past and present corporators were present on the occasion.

About half a dozen BJP corporators will have to change their wards after the reservation. These include Sanjay Pandey, Rana Ghosh, Ashok Yadav, Ramkumar Mandavi, Channuram and Nirmla Panigrahi. The Congress raised a question on the reservation process but BJP leaders claimed that transparency was maintained in the entire reservation process which was accomplished as per the procedure.