Post Supreme Court directive on GBA elections, BJP & Congress go into poll mode

Bengaluru: With the Supreme Court issuing a directive to the Karnataka government to hold the “long-pending” Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) elections (to the five city corporations) before June 30, and fixing February 20 as the deadline to publish the final ward-wise reservation, the ruling Congress, the Opposition BJP and the JD(S) are gearing up for the civic body elections, which were last held in
2015.

The civic body has been without an elected body since September 2020.

The BJP, which opposed the splitting of the previous Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike earlier, raising concern over disparity in revenue generation and development, said it is “prepared” to take on the ruling party in the upcoming polls.

Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly R Ashoka said, “The pothole-ridden roads of Bengaluru, the number of people who have lost their lives due to bad roads, and the mounting garbage are sufficient reasons to hold the GBA elections at the earliest.”

“The ruling Congress will be defeated as people will not forgive their sins,” he predicted.

Ashoka also clarified that the party’s central leadership would take a call on the possible alliance with the JD(S) for the civic polls.

Yelahanka BJP MLA S R Vishwanath said the party is opposed to the formation of GBA, as splitting it into five city corporations was unscientific. “But the ruling Congress carried out the ward delimitation and fixed the reservation as per its whims and fancies despite our objections. However, our party is prepared to face the elections even if they are held within a week.”

“We have already held ward-level meetings and are confident of winning across all five corporations,” he added.

The party has formed an 11-member team of coordinators led by state president B Y Vijayendra and comprising leaders of the Opposition, City MPs, MPs C N Manjunath, Shobha Karandlaje and former chief minister D V Sadananda Gowda and MLA Suresh Kumar.

The party has also appointed in-charge and co-in-charge leaders for each corporation, besides assigning an in-charge leader to each of the three organisational districts in the city.

The ruling Congress welcomed the Supreme Court ruling, saying the government is ready to conduct the elections.

“The ward delimitation and reservation matrix is ready, and the party has already begun the preparations. We have called for applications from ticket aspirants, identified block-level agents 1 and 2 across Bengaluru city and also submitted the list of additions or deletions to the BLOs, for the first time in Bengaluru,” Rajya Sabha member G C Chandrashekhar said. 

“Also, the party is connecting with booth committees and guarantee scheme beneficiaries. Soon, the manifesto committee will be formed, and the manifesto will have a clear vision for Bengaluru’s development,” he added. 

The Congress has appointed ministers to oversee preparations across the five corporations – Bengaluru Central (Dinesh Gundu Rao), Bengaluru North (KJ George), Bengaluru East (Krishna Byregowda), Bengaluru West (Byrati Suresh) and Bengaluru South (Ramalinga Reddy).

Deputy Chief Minister-Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president D K Shivakumar, who also holds the Bengaluru development portfolio, has said that the party had issued 759 applications to ticket aspirants.

The application forms were priced at Rs 50,000 for the General category and Rs 25,000 for women and Dalits, as the party is raising funds to build a new party office across the state.

Shivakumar had stated that booth-level workers would be given priority. A legal cell would be set up and every booth-, block-level agents would be trained to fight vote theft, he added.