The Karnataka High Court has listed a batch of petitions challenging the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) ward delimitation for orders on September 21. The State Election Commission (SEC) had submitted to the court that it would be releasing the revised electoral list on September 22.
Justice Hemanth Chandanagoudar is hearing the batch of petitions filed challenging the manner in which the delimitation of wards in Bengaluru has been carried out. The number of wards was increased to 243 from 198. The government had defended the delimitation and said the average population in each ward was maintained at 34,750 with a deviation of 10 per cent. The delimitation was done in order to start the process to conduct the much-delayed BBMP elections.
The Supreme Court had said that the High Court could decide on the issue. The High Court also held as maintainable the challenge to the delimitation exercise. The court was once again informed on Tuesday, September 13, that the final list of voters would be ready on September 22 after considering the objections.
When the advocates of one of the petitioners submitted to the court that the delimitation exercise had ‘malice’, the High Court said it was not proved. "Where is the malice? I asked the learned advocates to establish malafide. That they are unable to do (so)," the court said. The court said uniformity across all the wards was not an absolute necessity.
"Article 82 has been interpreted by the Supreme Court and held that there not be uniformity in the constituencies," the court said. Further adding that renaming of the wards could wait till the next election. Under Article 82 of the Indian Constitution, the Parliament enacts a delimitation exercise after every census.
The state government carried out a ward delimitation exercise that increased the number of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council seats from 198 to 243 based on the population and demographics of Bengaluru city. A draft ward reservation list was then made available. This list indicates that 81 of the 243 seats are reserved for OBC candidates, 28 seats are reserved for SC candidates, and four seats are reserved for ST candidates. There are 130 seats allotted for candidates from the general category. In all of the aforementioned categories, seats have been further reserved for women in half of the available seats.
However, Congress leaders were not satisfied with the list and had challenged the same in the High Court. They consider a reservation to be fair if it accurately represents the local population. Therefore, if a ward needs to be set aside for members of a Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST), a sizable proportion of SC/ST residents must live there, the Congress had said. Abdul Wajid, a former Congress corporator, had claimed that the population did not represent the reservation's implementation and that when it comes to reservation for women, it must be disseminated throughout the city. But in Congress-leaning districts like Gandhi Nagar and BTM Layout, the majority of the wards have been clustered and reserved for women, the party alleged.