These former corporators, who were literally jobless after the term of the erstwhile Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) Council ended in November 2006, had ensured that they remained in touch with citizens of their wards by occasionally getting civic works done using their personal contacts with BBMP officials.
Now they want to use their popularity at the ward level as a stepping-stone in their political career. In fact, the Palike has been a training ground for many corporators to enter state and national-level politics. There have been several instances in the past wherein ministers, former MLAs and even Rajya Sabha members have graduated from the Mahanagara Palike.
While former Mayor Prema Cariappa is an MP now, former corporators Ramalinga Reddy, V Somanna and R Krishnappa have tasted ministerial powers. S Suresh Kumar and N L Narendra Babu, former MLAs of Rajajinagar and K Chandrashekar, former MLA of Hanumanthnagar were active corporators before they made it to the Legislative Assembly.
While corporators and former mayors from all political parties have started hectic lobbying for the ticket, most are banking on their performance in the last term. With some of the former MLAs having lost their constituencies after the delimitation, they are trying to contest from the neighbouring constituency. This has irked the area corporators, who feel that they might loose a chance.
Lobbying
Hectic lobbying is on among senior Congress corporators for the party ticket. According to Congress sources, former mayors P R Ramesh, K Chandrashekar, Mumtaz Begum, R Narayanaswamy, C M Nagaraj, J Huchappa and K C Vijaykumar and several corporators including M Laxminarayana, B S Puttaraju, V Rajanna, M Nagaraj, D Muniraju, V Rajanna, G Padmavathy and R Shankar have applied for the ticket.
According to a senior JD(S) leader, former corporators such as B R Nanjundappa, Syed Jameel Ahmed, Marimuttu, Ashwathamma, B Shivappa, Padmanabha Reddy, B K Venkatesh, Somashekar and Vasudev Murthy have applied for the ticket.
From the BJP, A S Basvaraju, Venkatesh Murthy, B S Satyanarayana, S K Nataraj, Gopal Reddy, Ramamurthy, Gangabhyraiah, Munikrishna, Suryakantha Rao and S Raghu are trying to climb up the political ladder. Raghu has already been a MLA in the last term.
The aspiring corporators are waiting for the official lists to be announced. "We (corporators) have worked all these years in our wards and have the people's support. We hope our party leaders recognise our contributions this time," one of the aspirants said.