BJP may lose Mayor post to Congress

The BJP, which is yet to recover from the terrible rout in the Assembly elections, may lose the mayoral post in Bangalore to the Congress.

The mayoral election was supposed to be held before April 26, but due to the Assembly elections and a High Court order to reserve either the post of mayor or deputy mayor for Scheduled Tribes (STs), the BBMP had put off the election for about a fortnight.

The ruling BJP in the BBMP Council may now be compelled to offer the mayoral post to the Congress as it does not have a single ST member among the 110 corporators, while the Congress has two ST corporators, Indira from Byatarayanapura and Lokesh from Neelasandra.

A party in majority in the BBMP Council having mayor from another party is not something new. In 1997, K H N Simha belonging to the Congress became the Mayor, although the JD(S) was in majority in the erstwhile Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.

As the political dynamics have changed in the State, BBMP officials want to delay the process for a few days on the pretext of 'more clarity'.

A Palike official said, “We want more clarity from the government on whether the mayor or the deputy mayor should be a Scheduled Tribe member.”