BENGALURU: Four former Bengaluru mayors, all from Congress, will not be able to seek reelection from the wards they represented at the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Council earlier as the reservation categories of their wards have been changed. The civic body’s term ended last week and the State Government announced the draft of reservation category for wards on Monday. While the four former mayors will not be able to contest from their earlier wards with the change in the reservation category, the description of the ward represented by the former BJP mayor has remained the same, Congress leaders pointed out.
The reservation category of Madiwala ward, represented by Manjunath Reddy, and DJ Halli ward, held by Sampath Raj, has been changed to woman (general), ruling both out from contesting the election from their wards. In March this year, the State Government had announced a new list of 198 wards, where many wards in core Bengaluru were merged and new ones were created in the city’s periphery. Former Congress mayor Padmavathi’s Prakashnagar ward and her successor Gangambike Mallikarjun’s Jayanagar ward were merged with neighbouring areas.
This also meant that these two former mayors cannot contest from their wards. Gangambike said her ward has been divided and merged with Siddapura and VV Puram wards, both reserved for woman (general) category. “I can contest from any of these two wards, but it is sad that my ward does not exist anymore. The state government has done it on purpose,’’ she said. Padmavathi too blamed the government for the loss of her ward, which has been divided between Dayanadanagar and Ramamandir.
Sources in the Urban Development Department said that irrespective of the government in place, they always try to place hurdles for strong opposition candidates to make way for their own party workers. “It happened during the previous government and it is happening now,” they said. Suggestions and objections over the draft reservation list can be submitted to the Bengaluru Urban Deputy Commissioner’s office within seven days. The State Government in August 2020 constituted a Joint Select Committee to look into the BBMP Bill 2020.
The committee has requested two more months to submit the report and the Speaker has given time till November 10. There is a proposal to increase the number of wards from the existing 198 to 225 or 400 wards. V Ravichander, who was part of the BBMP Restructuring Committee, said as per the existing law, the delimitation should be restricted to within 200 wards. This will be the basis for the BBMP elections in the near term. “However, if a new BBMP Bill is passed with increased wards, and one hopes it is 400 and not 225, the delimitation and reservation exercise has to be redone before the polls,” he said.