BJP corporators take to the streets, but will they be able to thwart Congress coup?

BBMP Mayoral election is less than a week away  and  BJP, the majority party, is now feeling the pressure to act before Congress snatches the BBMP mayoral post away from them. 

 

On Saturday, BJP's 100 corporators protested against the 'undemocratic conduct' of Congress to grab power at BBMP.

 

Congress which won 76 seats in the civic elections has been pushing for an alliance with JD(S), which won 14 seats. 

 

Based on the notification from State government the mayoral elections would be held on September 11. However, five elected BJP Councillors have moved  the court for a clarification of voting rights of non-council members. The high court would hear the petition on September 8. 

 

Suresh Kumar, Former State Law Minister and leader of BJP in Karnataka said, "​Congress under the leadership of Siddaramaiah miserably failed to get the mandate for BBMP in the elections. They could secure only 76 out of 188 seats. inspite of the CM himself holding the portfolio of BBMP. They came out with many proposals including the one to postpone elections. So they contested the unwanted elections and they were confident of coming back to power on their own." 

 

The Congress has so far met most of the demands of JD(s) including dropping the trifurcation plan of Bengaluru, to get its support. They are bending over backwards to please the JD(S) for the very limited purpose of ruling over Bengaluru whereas both parties are rivals at the State and National level. 

 

Rajeev Chandrashekar who represents Karnataka in the Rajya Sabha puts the situation in perspective. He said ,"The current efforts of the Congress to take over the BBMP despite losing the elections is bad politics! It mocks the verdict of the BBMP elections a few weeks ago.

 

The Congress has already played many games over the last many months to stall the elections, so that it could directly control Bengaluru - and now faced with a verdict of the people that has gone against it, is resorting to playing further political games to gain control of Bengaluru! This is political gaming at its worst. What Bengaluru needs is good citizen centric Governance and planning and not further looting and exploitation."

 

The former law minister accused the Congress for not accepting the people's mandate as they have clearly been defeated in the civic election.

 

"Inspite of series of charges against the BJP by the congress, BJP has been able to emerge as a majority party. Now Congress wants to take away the chance from BJP to administer BBMP and they doing this by holding back-room-parlays and entering in to alliance." said the BJP leader.

 

At the same time, he made it clear that the BJP was not chasing power. "BJP has made it very clear that only if 198 members are given the voting rights they will come to power, otherwise BJP will not hesitate to sit in the opposition and discharge its responsibilities." he added. 

 

While there is a lot of drama that is going on, both in public and behind the scenes, Bengaluru's citzens continue to suffer because a non-functioning civic body is making matters worse and the upkeep of Bengaluru suffers.