BENGALURU:With hardly 10 days left for the assembly elections, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad, who is also the district election officer, was transferred without any posting. Senior IAS officer M Maheshwar Rao is the new BBMP Commissioner with immediate effect.
Prasad was serving as BBMP Commissioner since April 2016. At present, he was also serving as district election officer for the upcoming assembly election. “I do not know where my next posting will be, and I do not know the reason for the transfer,” Manjunath Prasad told The New Indian Express.
Maheshwar Rao, from the 1995 batch, who was serving as secretary to department of agriculture, has been given BBMP Commissioner’s post with immediate effect. With the various civic challenges, Rao will also be looking into election work. Official sources in Urban Development department said Prasad was transferred due to BJP’s complaint before Election Commission of India against him for ‘’favouring’’ Congress candidates.
According to BBMP sources, the transfer was because of BJP pressuring the Central Election Commission over Prasad not allowing the party’s hoardings to be put up in the city.“BJP wanted to put up illegal hoardings of the party’s advertisements in the city, which was not allowed. BJP had given two complaints regarding this to Election Commission at the Central level, including one complaint on Wednesday. The Commissioner sought legal opinion on the matter, and the Additional Chief Secretary-led committee had also said permission could not be given. The Commissioner constantly told the BJP that giving them permission would be against the court orders and illegal to grant them permission,” the source said.