Civic polls to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which has been functioning without an elected body for over three years now, may not happen before the Lok Sabha elections. The Congress leaders had assured of holding polls for the civic body in December.
A senior Congress Minister from Bengaluru said that while delimitation exercise was completed, the government is still pondering on drafting reservation for the Other Backward Communities (OBC) reservation. “Elections in December now looks unrealistic as the government is unsure how to formulate OBC reservations matrix. The election for the BBMP may happen after the completion of Lok Sabha polls,” the Minister said.
For the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Women, the government has population data but for the OCB it is unavailable. Preparing reservation matrix based on randomisation may not be accepted by the community leaders, the Minister claimed. However, OBC reservation matrix has always been done based on random selection for decades now.
Former Congress councillors slamming the government’s stand said the MLAs from Bengaluru in the party do not want an elected body in the BBMP as they do not want councillors at the helm of affairs in the city. “This is no different to the attitude of BJP MLAs when they were in power. The BJP started employing delay tactics and the Congress is continuing the same. The term of the previous elected body ended in September 2020,” said a former councillor from Congress.
The previous BJP government carried out delimitation exercise increasing the number of wards from 198 to 243. The Congress government after coming to power withdrew previous delimitation notification and issued fresh notification decreasing total number of wards to 225. The government has issued the final notification of the delimitation.
The reservation matrix done by the previous BJP government was challenged in the High Court and the court set aside the matrix in September 2022 citing that Supreme Court (SC) guidelines were not followed. The Bhaktavatsala committee that was tasked with examining the political underrepresentation of backward communities, has now submitted its report and the incumbent Congress government has recently accepted three recommendations out of five made by the committee.
While former councillors, cutting across party lines, have been pressing hard for early civic polls, MLAs are not ready, sources said. “Congress leaders are arguing with former councillors pressing for polls that result of BBMP polls will have an impact on Lok Sabha polls. They argue that it is better to hold civic polls after parliamentary polls,” a senior Congress leader said, adding confusion on OBC reservation matrix was only a delay tactic.
However, Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy, who is also chairman of a Congress internal committee on civic polls, and who had announced that the party was committed to hold BBMP polls by December 2023, said they were preparing for elections and they will put full efforts to hold civic polls as soon as possible. “We have completed delimitation and soon we will ready reservation soon,” he said.
Rakesh Singh, Administrator of the BBMP and Additional Chief Secretary of the Urban Development Department, said “the draft of the reservation matrix is ready but we are in consultation with the legal team on whether this can be notified in the present format.”
