BENGALURU: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike will complete four years next month, without an elected body. Now with the government proposing a three-tier system — ward committees, multiple corporations and a Greater Bengaluru authority — besides a full five-year term for the mayor, opposition parties claim that all these developments will eventually delay holding municipal polls for at least one year.
Lashing out at the government, alleging that it is tactfully delaying BBMP polls, Dasarahalli MLA S Muniraju said it is the doing of Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru Development Minister DK Shivakumar for his ‘Brand Bengaluru’, but it will end as ‘Bad Bengaluru’.
“The government is scared to hold elections. Bengaluru has 17 BJP MLAs, and in the recent Lok Sabha elections, BJP swept the Bengaluru segments. The government increased Rs 5 on milk per litre since it came it power, Cauvery water is still not supplied to outer city areas. They increased guidance value on land, the slab on power supply also increased, and the state increased tax on petrol... all this will end in their (Congress) defeat. Hence, they don’t want to hold BBMP elections. The new exercise is just to buy time, and they will come back to the old system,” said Muniraju.
He added that funds for development of wards have also been cut. Earlier, Rs 3 crore was given to core area wards and Rs 4 crore for wards in outer areas, and this has been reduced, he alleged.
Former minister and MLA of Mahalakshmi Layout constituency K Gopalaiah said the new system proposed by the DCM will not work. There are classic examples like the Delhi and Mumbai model and they too have now adopted the old system of running a municipality. “After a year, the government may come back to the old system of municipality rules,” he added.