BBMP elections: Five former mayors to lose home turf

Senior ex-councilors including five former mayors – who dominated the council debates in the past – will not be able to contest from the wards they were representing so far, in the upcoming BBMP elections. The recently-notified reservation list has delivered a big blow to them by changing the ward categories. Among those who are affected include two former corporators -- who filed a petition before the Supreme Court for early polls -- as their ward reservation too has been changed.

Ward reservation is usually used as a weapon by the ruling party to ensure former corporators -- who are seen as a potential political threat -- do not get re-elected. The MLAs of the ruling party have a bigger say in the entire ward reservation exercise who want the party candidates to win against all odds.

BS Satyanarayana (Basavanagudi), G Padmavathi (Prakash Nagar), Sampath Raj (Devarajeevanahalli), Manjunath Reddy (Madiwala) and Gautham Kumar (Jogupalya) are the former mayors who may have to look for a different ward to contest this time. The ward represented by former mayor Gangambike M, who contested from Jayanagar (now Ashok Pillar ward), has been changed to general category.

“I am a four-term councilor. The reservation of wards was changed after every term, but I was able to garner people’s support. This time I may have to contest from Shivanagar against mostly men as the ward is reserved for the general category,” Padmavathi said.

The new ward reservation has stunned four-time councilor Satyanarayana as Basavanagadi ward is now reserved for women. The buzz is that former mayors namely Gautham Kumar and Gangambike are hoping to contest in the upcoming assembly polls.

It is to be noted that Abdul Wajeed of Manorayana Palya and M Shivaraju of Shankar Mutt, who are also the petitioners in the Supreme Court on holding BBMP polls, will not be able to contest from the wards they have represented so far. The ward reservation is also such that former councilors Padmanabh Reddy, R S Satynarayan, M K Gunashekhar, C R Lakshminarayan, Manjula Narayanaswamy, Arya Srinivas will lose their safe seats.

In all, 113 (which is close to 47%) of the 243 wards have been reserved for the Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Caste (SC) and the Scheduled Tribe (ST) communities. The remaining 53%, which is 130 seats, are reserved for the general category. Also half of the 243 wards across all categories have been reserved for women candidates.

The election to the BBMP council is likely to take place anytime after October this year.