BBMP polls, State must obey HC order

The Karnataka government has again made it amply clear that it does not want elections to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to be held in the near future. This is the message one gets from the fact that it has appealed in the Supreme Court against the Karnataka High Court’s order which had directed that elections to the civic body should be held before August 5. The State Election Commission has in effect launched the election process. Though the detailed poll schedule has not yet been announced, the Commission has decided that the elections are to be held on July 28. This means the poll process and even the code of conduct has come into force. There is no precedent of postponing the elections at this stage. The high court had admonished and penalised the government for seeking to put off the elections. By contesting the judicial order and refusing to accept the prospect
of elections even in the last stretch, the government has shown that it still has the hope of delaying them.

This is wrong for many reasons. The government does not have a case or a sound reason for wanting to postpone the polls. It has changed its reasons from time to time, showing that they are mere excuses. It had said that it wanted to set right the affairs in the BBMP, which it said had been mismanaged by the BJP for the last five years. It said that there were corruption, financial problems and bad administration. If this is correct – in fact, this is – elections are the best means to address the problems. The government also wanted to split the BBMP into different corporations and use this as a pretext to put off elections. Then it wants the delimitation and reservation of wards to be undertaken on the basis of 2011 census and elections to be held after the process is completed. 

None of these grounds is genuine or valid. Court judgments have in the past rejected the need to update electoral rolls, undertake delimitation of wards and shifting of reserved seats as valid reasons for postponement of local body elections. There is a constitutional mandate to hold elections in time and that should be abided by. When the government has cited many reasons, one after another, to postpone the elections, it is clear that the real reason is different. Everyone knows it is political. But timely elections are the life breath of democracy. Unfortunately, even ele-cted governments have to be reminded of this.