BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to declare elections to 198 wards of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) as expeditiously as possible, within six weeks from the date of final reservation notification published by the state government.
A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S Vishwajith Shetty pronounced the judgement. This is a setback to the state government, which tried to defer the elections.
The court held that the amendment brought to the KMC Act by the state government to increase the number of wards from 198 to 243 is valid but made it clear that it is not applicable to the present elections to be held for the BBMP.
The SEC had filed a PIL in January 2020 seeking directions to the state government to extend necessary cooperation to comply with the constitutional mandate by holding elections before the expiry of the present term of the BBMP Council.
Meanwhile, two former corporators also moved the court by filing PILs seeking directions to hold elections to the existing 198 wards instead of the proposed 243 wards.
This was after the state brought an amendment to the KMC Act to increase the number of wards to 243 from 198 and constitute a Delimitation Commission to submit a report.
However, the SEC has contended that a minimum of one year is required to conduct elections if 243 wards are taken into consideration and public money and time spent already for preparing the voter list will go waste.
Even the other two petitioners also supported the contention of the SEC and strongly opposed the state's move to defer elections to the BBMP which is now under Administrator control as the term of the corporators has expired.
It may be noted that the state government also tried to defer the Grama Panchayat elections citing the COVID-19 pandemic but could not succeed due to the intervention of the high court.
Following the directions issued by the high court, the SEC declared the polls recently.