BENGALURU: With its staffers engaged in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and Census 2026 work, the State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, seeking more time to hold elections to the five city corporations under Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA), “in the interest of justice and equity”.
The SEC also stated in its appeal to SC that GBA’s concerns are ‘genuine’. Weeks ago, GBA had dashed off a letter stating reasons like SIR, Census-27, Houselisting, resulting in a staff crunch. The exercise is also having a cascading affect on election preparations.
Earlier, the SC had set June as the deadline to put an elected council in place in five city corporations under GBA. Interestingly, the development comes a few days after State Election Commissioner GS Sangreshi stated that he would not subscribe to any excuses by GBA and announce the election dates. He also set a seven-day deadline to GBA to give dates to hold polls between June 14 and 24.
M Shivaraju, former corporator from Shivanagara in Mahalakshmi Layout, said he had filed the petition before the SC last year to hold local body elections, and now the GBA and present government are citing SIR, census and staff shortage, and have sought time till September.
“It is the SC’s discretion to accept the reasons and give another three months’ time, or it may stick to its earlier order. If it directs us to hold elections before June, we can expect the date in the next 10 days,” he said.
An MLC from Bengaluru said civil works related to roads, footpaths and others are in full swing, which may require three months. The government feels that completing these jobs will give it an edge during elections.
Earlier on Monday, AS Ponnanna, legal adviser to CM Siddaramaiah, told reporters they held discussions with the Chief Minister, AICC General Secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala and others on the possibility of making arrangements. “GBA officials are busy with census and SIR work which will be on till June. When will they have time to prepare for GBA polls? Making arrangements is challenging for the government too.
If polls have to be conducted, we discussed what needs to be done from our side, including constituting committees at GBA and party manifesto. We have to conduct polls as per the Supreme Court directions,” he said.
Ponnanna said it is challenging for GBA staff to conduct census and SIR as many in Bengaluru are working and are unavailable, their houses are locked and this will delay the process. “The only solution is to go to court and explain. We are going to inform SC how many officials we have, how many are on SIR and census duty, and how many are free, how much time we need and how many people we need for GBA poll work,’’ he added.