No reply from govt to letter on Palike polls, SEC tells HC

The State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday filed an affidavit in the High Court, saying that despite it writing several letters to the State government since 2013 to make preparations for the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) elections, it had not received any reply till date.

The affidavit was filed in connection with a petition by two BJP corporators - B Somashekar representing Shakambari Nagar ward and C K Ramamurthy representing Pattabhirama Nagar ward. The petitioners have contended that though the term of the present BBMP council ends on April 22, no steps have been taken either by the government or the SEC to hold the elections.

The affidavit said that the SEC had informed the government that there was a need to prepare a new list of reservation of wards as per the 2011 census. The SEC had specifically brought to the notice of the government that the exercise of delimitation of wards had to be undertaken pursuant to the 2011 census report and that it was a time-consuming process. The government was requested to carry out the exercise without any delay and furnish the notification of delimitation of BBMP wards to the SEC by March 2014, the affidavit said.

The SEC, despite several letters and reminders, had not received any reply from the government nor did it receive the list of delimitation of wards or reservation of seats, the affidavit said.
 
The SEC said that it had prepared a list of executives who would be on election duty, but there was no response from the government. The affidavit said that if the government permitted the SEC, it could hold the elections in six weeks.

Justice B V Nagarathna adjourned the next hearing to Tuesday as advocates had abstained from work following a call by Bar Council of India, in protest against the recent murder of an advocate in an Allahabad court.