Bangalore civic agency polls delayed

BANGALORE: The much-awaited Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike elections may not be held in the near future. And, with Lok Sabha elections fast approaching, they could be further delayed. But there���s some hope with the Urban Development Department meeting on Saturday on the delimitation process.
After several delays, the polls should have been held before March 9, 2009 as per the High Court order.But, the government has still not issued the final notification on delimitation of wards. Although that's a basic requirement for the election process, there's been no progress on that front.
After forming the BBMP, the government increased the number of wards from 100 to 147. The draft notification on these wards received many objections in the past two months but the final notification on delimitation is yet to be issued. The Election Commission is awaiting delimitation and reservation details. Once delimitation is completed, the government has to notify the reserved wards too.
The Urban Development Department (UDD) is waiting for directions from the government. As it has not received any instructions, it has decided to go ahead with delimitation and called for a meeting on Saturday, informed a senior officer on condition of anonymity. If the CM agrees to the officials' recommendations in the meeting, the final notification may be released within a week, he said.
As the Belgaum special session of the legislature begins on January 16, the final notification should be released before that. The delay may end up with the dates clashing with Lok Sabha elections.
If BBMP elections are to be held within the court's deadline, the government should gear up and start the process of finalizing delimitation and reservation before January 15. The state election commission announced that it would hold elections within a month after the government finishes the delimitation and reservation process. Now, the ball is in the government's court.
Meanwhile, three MLAs of BBMP area i.e. Rajarajeshwarinagar, K R Puram and Bommanahalli, are first-timers. As they are yet to know about their wards, they are not keen on BBMP elections and trying to convince the government to postponing the elections.