Bengaluru: Corporators’ no-show at panel polls costs taxpayers Rs 16 lakh

Atul Chaturvedi / TNN / Updated: Dec 5, 2019, 10:58 IST

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The elections for BBMP’s 12 standing committees, key civic decision-making bodies, were deferred for the third time on Wednesday as corporators, reportedly occupied with bypoll work of their parties, did not show up to file nominations.

Bengaluru: Corporators’ no-show at panel polls costs taxpayers Rs 16 lakh

Not a single councillor showed up at Town Hall to submit nomination on Wednesday

BENGALURU: The elections for BBMP’s 12 standing committees, key civic decision-making bodies, were deferred for the third time on Wednesday as corporators, reportedly occupied with bypoll work of their parties, did not show up to file nominations.
The delay, after the three attempts, has cost taxpayers Rs 16 lakh. The money was spent on election arrangements, which went to waste and will made afresh on the next date, possibly after Christmas.

TimesView

This perhaps tops the recent debacles, even by the embarrassing standards of the people who allegedly run the country’s tech capital. A triumph of poor sense. No branch of civic or government function is free of politics, a fact every citizen painfully experiences. But should political parties be allowed to wield such influence on councillors, ordering them to skip an electoral process that’s organised with taxpayers’ money? The wasted sum, Rs 16 lakh, could have been used to fix one of Bengaluru’s many civic and infrastructural problems. A few potholes, for instance. Corporators must answer for this appalling conduct.

The term of the existing standing committees ended at 4pm on Wednesday.

Sources in BBMP claimed Congress, BJP and JD(S) instructed their corporators to skip Wednesday’s process and focus on party work for Thursday’s assembly bypolls.
According to rules, standing committee elections must be postponed if the number of council members present is less than one third of the council’s total strength.
The council has 256 members, including 198 corporators. Except the mayor and deputy mayor, all corporators can fight for a place on the standing committees. But not a single corporator turned up at the Town Hall, where the elections were scheduled to be held, on Wednesday.

Some key members — mayor M Gautam Kumar, BJP’s KV Munendra Kumar, Congress’s Abdul Wajid and Netra Narayan of JD(S) — were present at the Town Hall. The sources, however, alleged they were only there to ensure no corporator from their camps attended the procedure.
Harsh Gupta, regional commissioner, BBMP elections, confirmed the polls had been postponed.
V Anbu Kumar, additional commissioner (administration), BBMP, said: “We had kept one and a half hour for corporators to submit the nomination papers. But the returning officer did not receive a single nomination. Elections had to be postponed.”
The elections are now likely to be held after December 25 as officials need time to prepare for the next round.
The elections were supposed to be conducted on October 1. But senior representatives of the three parties ensured they were rescheduled. About Rs 10 lakh were spent in the first attempt. After a few weeks, polls for the standing committees on taxation & finance, accounts and health were announced as their terms had ended. Poor cooperation by corporators meant they were put off. About Rs 2 lakh of taxpayers’ money was wasted.
On Wednesday, arrangements were made at the Town Hall. “This included food and refreshments for 1,000-odd people. In the three rounds, we spent a total of Rs 16 lakh,” said an official, who was monitoring Wednesday’s proceedings.

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