BENGALURU: Small parties and their aspirants, planning to contest the elections to the five city corporations under the Bengaluru Authority (GBA), on Wednesday said they are unhappy with the Supreme Court decision to extend the deadline to hold the elections to August.
Ravi Krishna Reddy, founder, Karnataka Rashtriya Paksha (KRS), said the term of the elected council for Bengaluru ended on September 10, 2020, when the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was in place. The city has been functioning without an elected body for the last six years, he said.
“For 25 years, elections to the local bodies in Bengaluru have never happened on time. That is because current MLAs and their families want to have a hold on the elected bodies. They don’t want to see a parallel source of power and are against the local body elections as it will give rise to second-line leaders,” Reddy said.
Irrespective of the party in power in the state, governments always try to delay elections by filing appeal and affidavits. “We are saddened by such a long delay,” he added.
Despite the extensions and delays, the Bengaluru Navanirmana Party (BNP) is confident of winning the local body polls whenever it is held. BNP founder Srikanth Narasimhan said the party has selected around 50 wards and suitable candidates. “We have filed a petition in court for elections to the local bodies. The government can delay it, but it cannot drag on for a long time,” he said.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), looking to replicate its Delhi success in Bengaluru, is also working for the last six years to contest the local body elections.
“Congress is hesitant to hold the GBA elections as it is scared that it will lose in Bengaluru, a defeat that would severely damage DCM DK Shivakumar’s chief ministerial ambitions. It is highly likely that even by August, the party will find another pretext or legal loophole to delay the polls further,” Ashok Mruthyunjaya, chairman of AAP unit, Bengaluru East City Corporation, said.
AAP leader and Seshadripuram ward aspirant Usha Mohan said, “By deliberately delaying these polls, the Congress government isn’t just failing to fix Bengaluru’s infrastructure, it is actively blocking the democratic process that would allow an elected corporator to step in and solve these problems.”