BBMP polls scheduled for December: Minister Reddy

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A day after the State Urban Development Department issued a notification to reconstitute a commission to carry out a fresh ward delimitation exercise for Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, State Transport Minister R Ramalinga Reddy on Saturday said that State government has planned to conduct the BBMP elections during the month of December this year.

Replying to a query on the constitution of a delimitation commission, the minister said that his government has reconstituted the delimitation commission as the High Court gave 12 weeks for the State to redraw ward boundaries in its verdict issued on June 19.

The commission is headed by BBMP Chief Commissioner Tushar Giri Nath. It has Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) Commissioner, Bengaluru Deputy Commissioner, and BBMP Special Commissioner (Revenue) as members.

The commission will conduct the field study to plug loopholes in the previous draft finalised when the BJP was in power. He said that his party had opposed the delimitation exercise carried out by the BJP government as it was done in its favour, approached the court, sought time to redo delimitation.

"The State government now constitutes the commission as per its directions. The government will not interfere with the commission members. As announced by his party, the BBMP elections will be held by December for 243 wards including newly constituted ones", he said.

He also said that his government will abide by the High Court directions, and conduct the BBMP elections free and fair after taking all stakeholders into confidence.