JODHPUR, June 27 -- The state high court has held that municipal wards need to be constituted on the basis of population and not the number of voters, while dismissing a petition challenging the ward delimitation exercise in Nagar Palika Todabhim in Karauli district, a lawyer familiar with the case said on Thursday. A division bench of acting chief justice Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and justice Shubha Mehta said the challenge was founded on an incorrect assumption. The bench observed that Section 9 of the Rajasthan Municipalities Act, 2009 makes population, and not voter strength, the governing factor for ward representation. The petition was filed by Amrita Meena, a resident of Ward No. 15 of Nagar Palika Todabhim. The petitioner contended that after the municipal limits were revised and 35 wards were constituted, there was a substantial disparity in the number of voters across wards. It pointed out that Ward No. 25 had 973 voters whereas Ward No. 30 had only 217 voters. The petitioner also alleged improper proportioning of SCs, STs and OBCs while forming the wards. The petitioner argued that the disparity in voter numbers exceeded the permissible variation prescribed by the state government and undermined equal representation. Referring to Section 9 of the 2009 Act, the court observed that the representation of each ward shall be on the basis of the population of that ward and shall, as far as possible, be in the same proportion as the total number of seats for the Municipality bear to its population. It added that a ward may have more residents but fewer voters because the population could include more minors....