Bengaluru mayoral poll to be held on September 27

BENGALURU: A new mayor and deputy mayor will be elected on September 27.

The election will take place a day after the year-long term of Gangambike Mallikarjun, the 52rd mayor, ends on September 26.


Bengaluru regional commissioner Harsh Gupta, who will oversee the poll, told TOI that elections for chairmen and members of the

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike

(BBMP) standing committee would be held only upon receipt of the advocate general’s opinion.

Meanwhile, jockeying has intensified for the coveted posts with the BJP and the Congress-JD(S) alliance desperately trying to get the vote arithmetic in the BBMP council in their favour. The Congress-JD(S) has held the mayor’s post for the past four years. “But this time the mayoral poll will be different, our party’s nominee will be the mayor,” a BJP leader said on Friday.

The current strength of the BBMP council is 257. This includes city MLAs, MLCs, MPs and 198 corporators. The BJP is pinning its hopes on five disgruntled MLAs who were disqualified after they resigned in July. The simple majority, minus the disqualified MLAs, is now 129.

“A few corporators in the Congress and JD(S) are loyal to these MLAs,” a BBMP source said. “They will be the deciding factor. It should not come as a surprise if a few corporators are absent on polling day.”

The Congress-JD(S) alliance, for their part, is hoping to retain power in the council is not doing much work on the ground, particularly because of the absence of Congress strongman DK Shivakumar.

The frontrunners for the post from BJP are corporators Padmanabha Reddy (Kacharakanahalli), Manjunath Raju (Kadu Malleshwara), L Srinivas (Kumarswamy Layout), M Venkatesh (Katriguppe), Gautham Kumar (Jogupalya) and HA Kempegowda (Hanumanth Nagar).