The Karnataka government on Friday, May 20, told the Supreme Court that the delimitation exercise that is needed to conduct elections to the Bengaluru civic body will be completed in the next eight weeks, which means that the much-delayed BBMP polls are likely to be held soon. The Supreme Court took note of this and instructed the state election commission to announce election dates a week after the exercise is completed.
The elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) were to be held in September 2020. The term of the corporators, elected in 2015, ended on September 10, 2020, but to date, the Karnataka State Election Commission has not been able to schedule the elections. While the Karnataka government wishes to hold elections in 243 wards — the number of wards in Bengaluru was increased from 198 in October 2020 — the Karnataka High Court had ordered that the elections be held on time in the 198 wards. However, the Karnataka government moved the Supreme Court against the HC order, and this petition is what the Supreme Court heard on Friday.
The Karnataka government told the court on Friday that the delimitation exercise that was started in 2020 to carve out the 243 wards from the 198 wards, and the determination of OBC seats will be completed in eight weeks’ time. The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Khanwilkar then instructed the state election commission to notify the elections a week after the exercise is completed. The court will hear this case further on July 22.
The delimitation exercise has already been massively delayed, partly because of the COVID-19 pandemic. After five sittings, a year’s delay and three extensions from the government, the delimitation commission’s draft findings were submitted in January 2022. The main reason for this is that under the Karnataka Municipal Act, the delimitation exercise is carried out by the state government, and not the state election commission. And this exercise, therefore, is highly influenced by politics. There has been a lot of political tussle over the delimitation draft with dissonance among MLAs and political leaders across parties who were unhappy with the distribution of the wards.
However, a recent Supreme Court verdict has forced Karnataka to finally act on the much-delayed civic body elections. The Supreme Court on May 10 directed the Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission to issue a poll programme for local bodies within two weeks — and said that civic bodies cannot function without elected representatives. This order will apply to all states and union territories, the SC had said.
In its order, the Supreme Court said that the ongoing activity of delimitation or formation of wards cannot be a legitimate ground to not discharge its constitutional obligation in notifying the elections and ensuring that an elected body is installed before the expiry of the five-year term of the outgoing elected body.
Following this, the Karnataka government held consultations with legal representatives to decide the next course of action. Karnataka Revenue Minister R Ashoka had hinted that the BBMP election will be for 198 wards and not for 243 wards, as was earlier ordered by the Karnataka High Court in 2020.
TNM recently did a three-part series on how Bengaluru's fragile infrastructure is crumbling in the absence of elected corporators. The series looks at how the strength of ward committees has eroded in the absence of corporators, the legal obstacles that have to be overcome for conducting the elections and the political machinations underway to maintain the status quo.