BENGALURU: The state government is likely to hold elections to the BBMP only after splitting it into five city corporations through legislation in the forthcoming joint session of the legislature in July.
A decision was taken at a meeting convened by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah at his home office Krishna on Monday. A delegation of Bengaluru legislators, led by Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who is also Bengaluru development minister, took part in the meeting. Ministers Ramalinga Reddy, K J George and Zameer Ahmed Khan, legislators UB Venkatesh, Rizwan Arshad, Sudham Das, Nagaraj Yadav and Govindaraju, Rajya Sabha members GC Chandrashekar, Krishnappa and Nagaraj Yadav, CM’s political secretary Naseer Ahmed and Prof Rajeev Gowda were part of the deliberations.
“The situation is not conducive for Congress to hold polls under the present circumstances as BJP swept all the four Lok Sabha seats in the city. Splitting the BBMP will ensure that the party will win at least some of the five city corporations,” a legislator said. After the split, suburban areas that fall under BDA jurisdiction will also come under city corporation, covering over 840 sqkm under greater Bengaluru, they suggested.
The CM has agreed to the plan and the government has decided to prepare the ground to convince the Karnataka High Court, where the matter is pending, to further postpone the BBMP polls. In 2018, the then Congress-JDS alliance government had decided to not to split the BBMP into five as recommended by the restructuring committee.
The court set several deadlines to conduct elections to the BBMP, which has had no corporators since 2021. The government may face contempt if it fails to conduct elections soon.
At the Monday meeting, experts BS Patil and Ravichander, retired bureaucrats, gave a presentation on developing Brand Bengaluru.