Most of the objections filed over the draft of the ward delimitation in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) pertains to naming of wards, said chief civic commissioner Tushar Giri Nath.
The Urban Development Department had notified the draft of the delimitation of wards - increased from 198 to 243 - on June 23 and gave 15 days’ time till July 8 to file objections. The department has received 3,833 objections, a majority of them over naming of wards.
The most number of objections have come from Yeshwantpur Assembly constituency - 1,967 objections, of which over 1,700 are regarding naming of wards. K.R. Puram Assembly constituency has sent the second highest number of objections - 479, a majority of which are regarding ward names.
“A large ward has been divided into multiple wards and to which ward should we give the original name is something that seems to have animated many. There are objections to the names of new wards created, some named after historical personalities,” Mr. Giri Nath said. The draft of the ward delimitation has proposed to name wards after several historical personalities including Dr. Rajkumar, Veera Madakari, Kanneshwara Rama, and Chanakya among others.
The chief civic commissioner said there were a few objections claiming the delimitation of their ward was unscientific - that their pocket had been separated by a highway, lake, and wanted to be included in a ward that is easier to access for them. The Supreme Court has set a eight-week deadline on May 20 for ward delimitation and fixing the reservation roster for wards in BBMP to be completed, for the civic polls to be held.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Ramalinga Reddy told The Hindu that they would wait for the final notification of the ward delimitation and if their objections have not been taken into account and rectified they will be forced to challenge it legally. “The delimitation exercise has been carried out by the RSS and the BJP to help them politically and it has not been a people-centric exercise. If this is not corrected in the final notification, we will take the legal recourse,” he said.
