JOIN USThe Palike functioned under a bureaucratic shadow with ministers and the ruling party MLAs from Bangalore calling the shots. The High Court, on a public interest litigation by former Mayor P R Ramesh, had set a deadline of June 30 this year to hold the elections. The government, on June 5, just 25 days before the deadline, increased the number of wards to198 from 100. The list of wards was released on June 30.
All through the year the government seemed buying more time to hold the elections. The government took almost five months after the delimitation to come out with the reservation of wards on November 30. This announcement eventually paved way for the State Election Commission (SEC) to announce the election dates.
The SEC too set a new precedence by leaving a large gap between the announcement of election date on December 7 and setting Jan 15 as the date from which the election code of conduct would come into force.