The newly elected Congress government in the State is keen on splitting the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) into multiple corporations for ease of administration, multiple sources in the government confirmed to The Hindu. However, given the legal tangle that the civic polls is already in, the government is brainstorming on how to manoeuvre through this quagmire.
The government reconstituted the BBMP Restructuring Committee, led by former Chief Secretary B.S. Patil, on Monday to implement this agenda, sources said. The committee first formed during the earlier Congress tenure had in 2015 recommended splitting BBMP into multiple corporations. However, it was not implemented then as the courts forced the State government to hold civic polls immediately and there was political opposition to the move by the BJP and JD(S), who later came to power and nixed the proposal.
With Congress coming back to power with a comfortable majority, the party is keen to implement what it thinks is the best solution to fix the city’s governance deficit, a senior Congress leader said. Randeep Singh Surjewala, in charge of the party affairs in the State, chaired a meeting with Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister D.K. Shivakumar, city MLAs and members of the reconstituted committee on Monday, where a clear intent to split the civic body into multiple corporations was expressed, sources said.
New law
Congress had in its manifesto promised to bring a new law for city governance, with a single agency in charge of all the city parastatals such as the BDA, BWSSB, Bescom, BMTC, and BMRCL. This law which will replace the existing BBMP Act, 2020 brought in by the BJP government will be the vehicle to split BBMP into multiple corporations, yet retain Brand Bengaluru with an overarching agency governing the city, which will probably be chaired by the Chief Minister. This will address concerns of erosion of Brand Bengaluru if the civic body is split into multiple corporations, sources said.
Sense of déjà vu
However, there is a sense of déjà vu in how courts mandating civic polls at the earliest may derail the intended changes to the governance structure in the city, like in 2015. The petition seeking immediate elections to BBMP will come up for hearing in the Supreme Court of India on July 4. Meanwhile, multiple petitions challenging the delimitation of 243 wards are pending before the High Court of Karnataka. The petitioners include not only Congress members, who have alleged that the delimitation was politically motivated by the BJP, but also BJP MLA Satish Reddy.
“Bringing in a new law, a basic draft of which is already ready, and splitting the civic body into multiple corporations and redoing the delimitation of wards will take at least four to six months. The civic body has been under administrator’s rule for the past two-and-a-half years under the BJP government and hurrying elections now will only derail the reform process. But it needs to be seen whether the courts will provide us that kind of time,” said a senior Minister from the city, who did not wish to be named.
Contingency plan
If the courts force the State government to hold civic polls immediately, even then the party and the government are keen to bring in a new law for city’s governance, post elections if need be, sources said. “A transition period can be built into the new law. While the law, which may provide for multiple corporations, will start to govern the city’s governance, the single corporation will split up into multiple corporations when the next elections are held,” a senior MLA said.
Surjewala’s presence in the meeting creates stir
The presence of Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, in charge of party affairs in the State, at a meeting which had Chief Civic Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath and Additional Chief Secretary Rakesh Singh, has caused a stir. BJP leaders, led by former Minister R. Ashok, are set to complain to the Governor in this regard on Wednesday.
The Opposition BJP tweeted a photo of the meeting held at Shangri La hotel in the city terming it a “secret meeting” and asked if this was a “85% deal fixing meeting” and questioned what was Mr. Surjewala, who had nothing to do with the State government or BBMP, doing in an official meeting. Former Chief Minister and JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy also tweeted questioning Mr. Surejwala chairing the meeting with Ministers and officials. He questioned whether the government in the State was led by Siddaramaiah or by the “minions of 10, Janpath”. “It’s the misfortune of Karnataka that people from the Congress high command even run official meetings of the Government of Karnataka,” he said.
Sources in the Congress said that Mr. Surjewala held the meeting with city MLAs and experts, including members of the BBMP Restructuring Committee on “developing Brand Bengaluru” and claimed that it was not an official meeting. However, the presence of two senior IAS officers has raised eyebrows.
