BENGALURU: With just a few days left for the Bengaluru Mayoral electiona, rebels who had resigned from their MLA posts, which had led to the toppling of the Congress-JDS alliance, are now demanding that the BJP nominate candidates from their constituencies.
In July 2019, Byrathi Basavaraju from KR Puram, Munirathna from Rajarajeshwarinagar, S T Somashekar from Yeswanthpur and Goapaliah from Mahalakshmi Layout joined the rebel team. However, as they were disqualified, they challenged the SC, the hearing for which is still pending. Till the order is passed, there will be no clarity on whether there will be bypolls.
Meanwhile, Mayor and Deputy Mayor elections have been scheduled for September 27. This time, the polls have been reserved for the General category. Normally, the party that has won simple majority is confident of nominating their candidate for the BBMP posts. And since this is the first time since 2015 that the BJP has been in power in the state for the BBMP elections, the level of competition is high.
Now, the disqualified MLAs are placing their demands before the BJP to nominate councillors from any of their constituencies. “This has put our leaders in a dilemma. We cannot give the mayor’s post to these MLAs’ followers. We already have some senior councillors in mind,’’ said a BJP leader. When contacted, Byrathi Basavaraju, who is in New Delhi, said they are going to meet in the city and discuss the same with ST Somashekar before a decision is made.
It can be recalled that in 2015, soon after the Palike election results, though BJP had more councillors, S T Somashekar and Byrathi Basavaraju played an important role in getting the JDS-Congress alliance to power, thus keeping the saffron party out of the BBMP council.