BENGALURU: There is nothing unusual about the state government getting a rap from the High Court on Monday for trying to delay Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) polls.
In fact, the state government, irrespective of which party is in power, has a history of making “deliberate” attempts to postpone or delay elections to the local governments particularly, urban local bodies (ULBs), under one or the other pretext and getting pulled up by the courts in return.
In the recent past, hardly any election to ULBs in the state have been held on time or without a legal battle arising out of government’s efforts to postpone or delay the elections. This is despite a Supreme Court order making it mandatory for all state governments to hold ULB polls on time and can be postponed only if there is a natural calamity or a law and order problem.
The first elections to the BBMP (the erstwhile BMP) were held in March 2010 after a gap of almost three-and-a-half years. The term of the BMP ended on November 23, 2006. Elections were delayed on the pretext of creating BBMP adding seven municipalities and 110 villages to it, delimitation of wards, 2008 Assembly and 2009 Lok Sabha elections etc. But it was only after the intervention by the courts, that the elections were held.
Similarly, all-out efforts were made by the then BJP government headed by Jagadish Shettar to postpone elections to the 208 ULBs in 2013. It did not even bother to provide reservation and ward delimitation list to the State Election Commission (SEC). The latter had to move the court to get the list. But to hold the elections, the Supreme Court had to intervene. Though, the government pleaded before the court that it wanted to hold elecions as per 2011 census, the real reason was that no MLA was prepared to face an election just before Assembly elections which were scheduled in May 2013.
The Shettar government went a step ahead by passing a Bill making SEC take the advice of the state government before finalising the dates of elections. The Assembly even passed a resolution seeking postponement of elections. When the SEC did not heed to it, an effort was made to move a privilege motion against the commissioner.
This time also the government tried its best to ward off elections by proposing to divide the BBMP into three entities for administrative convenience, but courts did not buy this.
Expressing concerns over this trend which is prevalent cutting across party lines, former chief secretary A Ravindra said that it was the reluctance of MLAS to share power with their counterparts at the lower levels of the democracy resulting in such a situation.
He suggested empowering the state election commission with powers to prepare reservation roster and ward delimitation to put an end to such trend.
