Endless wait for BBMP polls

The wait for elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) has proved to be endless. The city administration has completed four years without an elected body. Successive governments have deferred elections to the civic body under several alibis. Earlier the Government postponed the civic polls on the pretext of delimitation of wards which were increased from 198 to 243. There was hullabaloo over unfair setting of boundaries and reservation of seats and apportioning the wards in a manner that there was no modicum of balance in number of voters.

It was pointed out that the areas with concentration of minorities, Dalits and other weaker sections were gerrymandered in a manner that the numbers of their representatives could be effectively minimised. Next it was the turn of conversion of the BBMP into a Greater Bengaluru Authority with carving out area from the neighbouring Ramanagram district and merging them with the BBMP territory. Currently, a bill to divide the BBMP into 10 smaller corporations is under consideration of a 14-member committee of legislators. It is apprehended that it would lead to the Mayor becoming a total non-entity. Over the years, most of the functions of BBMP have passed under to parastatal bodies such as the Bengaluru Development Authority (for land); BESCOM (for power); BWSSB (for water and sewage); BMTC (for transport).

Even the last vestige of authority, ie. waste management was taken away and passed over to the Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Ltd (BSWML) two years ago. The MLAs and the MLCs now perceive the elected BBMP as a largely redundant organ and fear their own authority would be being undermined by ward councillors if there were an elected body.

However, it is useful to be reminded that a city of Bengaluru’s magnitude cannot remain without peoples’ representatives. Moreover, by delaying the local body polls, the State government is violating a law mandated under the 74th Amendment.