With mayoral elections due in the second week of September, the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka has threatened to pull out of the ruling coalition in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council.
Currently, the Congress and the JD(S) hold the position of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor respectively.
“I will soon meet our party corporators and take a decision”, former Karnataka CM and party state Chief H D Kumaraswamy told media persons at the party’s ST/ SC cell meet.
He blamed purported corruption in the BBMP for the decision to leave the alliance.
“All decisions are taken by Bengaluru City Development Minister K J George and other Congress MLAs. The standing committees don’t have any power. They don’t get any files and no project comes to them for approval. This is nothing but a loot. That’s why Bengaluru has become like this,” Kumaraswamy added.
In the 198-ward BBMP council, the BJP has 100 councillors, while the Congress and JD (S) have 76 and 14 corporators respectively. The remaining eight corporators are independent candidates, out of which six support the Congress. But the electoral college consists of all sitting MLCs, MLAs, MPs from the state alongside the corporators.
Congress’s G Padmavathi became the mayor, and M Anand from the JD (S) was elected as her deputy in 2016 after the elections.Padmavathi had won 142 votes while DH Lakshmi from the BJP won 120 votes.
Without JD (S), Congress might not be able to retain the Mayor's position.
HDK also took an exception to CM Siddaramaiah’s comment about the eroding influence of JD (S) in the state’s politics. Incidentally, seven rebel JD(S) MLAs had met CM Siddaramaiah and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. The rebel MLAs will join the Congress, Siddaramaiah said.
“Siddaramaiah has become arrogant. He says the JD(S) has become almost non-existent. He thinks elections can be won with money, like the Congress did by spending Rs 100 crore to win the Nanjangud and Gundlupet Assembly bye-polls. In the 2018 Assembly election, the Congress’s saga of defeat will begin from these two constituencies,” Kumaraswamy said.
He also announced that an SC/ST convention will be held by the party in September, and in the next two weeks, SC/ ST MLAs will tour all 30 districts of the state.
