BENGALURU: Bengaluru to have 368 wards across the five corporations. The city had 198 wards, which were increased to 225 and now to 368. The state government on Tuesday issued a draft notification designating 368 wards across five corporations under the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA).
The notification specifies that Bengaluru West City Corporation will comprise 111 wards; East City Corporation, 50 wards; Central City Corporation, 63 wards; South City Corporation, 72 wards; and Bengaluru North City Corporation, 72 wards.
It was expected that the number of wards would go up to 500 or at least 450 wards, a move which would have benefited the smaller parties.
The government has set October 15 as the deadline for submitting public and stakeholder objections or suggestions. This process is significant as the notification indicates that an election may be announced in Bengaluru City, which has lacked an elected body since September 10, 2020.
Notably, the list includes wards named for Freedom Fighters, Revolutionaries, Congress, Maratha, and Dravida leaders across the five city corporations.
In South City Corporation, Ward-1 honors S Bangarappa, a former Karnataka CM. Ward-18 is named for Annie Besant, the first woman Congress Party president. Ward 66 in the same corporation bears the name of Abdul Kalam Azad, India’s first education minister post-independence. Ward 42 is named after the state poet Kuvempu.
East City Corporation’s Ward 3-Shivaji Nagar honours Maratha emperor Chatrapati Shivaji. Ward 6, Sarojini Nagar, is named after Indian poet and activist Sarojini Naidu. Ward-22, KS, Nisar Ahmed, is named for the award-winning poet and Kannada writer.
In Central City Corporation, Ward-11 is called Indiranagar, after India’s first woman Prime Minister. Likewise, Ward 5 honours K Kamaraj, former Tamil Nadu CM. Ward-39, Ambedkarnagar, is named for B.R. Ambedkar, principal author of the Indian Constitution. Ward-46 recognises visionary civic leader IPD Salappa, and Ward-48 is named for freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose.
Alongside the existing Chamarajpet ward-55, named for Mysuru Maharaja Chamarajendra Wodeyar, the government has honoured former CM Devraj Urs by naming ward 56 after him in the Central City Corporation. Ward 52 continues as Jag Jivan Ram Nagar, commemorating the visionary Dalit leader. Ward 53, known as Kasturba ward, is named after Kasturba Gandhi, the wife of the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.
In North City Corporation, a ward is named after Bengaluru founder Kempegowda, and Ward 6 is named Kempegowda Ward. Ward 16-Rajiv Nagar is named after the late Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi. Similarly, 32-JP PARK ward is dedicated to the theorist and politician Jayaprakash Narayan. Ward number 46-RT Nagar is named after writer, poet, and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore.
In West City Corporation, the GBA ward delimitation team has mentioned the 12th-century reformer Basaveshwara's name for ward 52 as Basaveshwara Nagara. Similarly, ward 57-Da.ra Bendre Ward (Jnaneepeetha awardee), Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar Ward-14 (Mysuru Royal), Puneeth Rajkumar as ward 15, the ward after him. Ward 70-Sangolli Rayanna Ward is named after a freedom fighter, and Ward 71-Krishnadevaraya Ward is named after the Vijayanagara empire.
As some wards may have extened boundry or some cross and lane and layout merged with new ward, there could be objection or suggestions and hence the government stated that, all affected persons, who have any objections/suggestions to the said proposal, are required to submit the same with reasons to the Additional Chief Secretary to the Government, Urban Development Department, Room No: 436, 4th floor, Vikasa Soudha, Bengaluru-560 001, before 5.00 pm of 15-10-2025. The objections/suggestions received within the stipulated period will be considered, and action will be taken to finalise the ward-wise delimitation.
A missed opportunity???
As soon as the government released the notification, city-based personalities took to X to express their views on the exercise. While the number of wards in Bengaluru has been increased to 368, Urban Expert Ashwin Mahesh said it is a missed opportunity and pointed out that it appears that the government has accepted the demands of political parties to limit the numbers to ensure that the representation is not granular. "While this is more than BBMP had in the past, it's also a missed opportunity. Mysuru and Hubbali Dharwad both have half the population of each of the five Bangalore corporations. But they have 65 and 82 wards respectively. The government appears to have accepted the demands from political parties to limit the number of wards and ensure that representation is not very granular", Ashwin Mahesh said.
He said that the number of wards will remain the same, probably for the next 10 years, and by then Bengaluru's population will continue to grow.
"Using the 2011 Census to delimit wards is required by law. But deciding that each ward in Bengaluru should have roughly the same number of voters as per the 2011 Census is bizarre, because east, south, and north have grown so much since then. Each corporation should have been delimited separately. If the government did not want to do that, then it should have set 15,000 voters per ward as the threshold and ensured at least 100 wards in each corporation", he said.