Bengaluru
The State government, which is now armed with the High Court order on delimitation, will redraw ward boundaries across the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits in a span of 12 weeks, a time period stipulated by the court. Minister for Transport Ramalinga Reddy will supervise the delimitation.
Sources in the Congress alleged that a draft of the exercise was submitted to the government by a commission which was non-existent at the time of submission. Documents furnished before the High Court and accessed by the The Hindu revealed that delimitation was notified by the previous BJP regime on July 14, 2022, while the final notification was issued after the tenure of the delimitation commission ended. The tenure of the commission that was constituted on January 29, 2021, ended on July 29, 2021.
The then government had stated that the commission submitted its report on June 23, 2022. Interestingly, during that time, the commission was non-existent. On the other hand, the government, after issuance of the final notification, extended the term of this non-existent commission post facto on August 6, 2022.
Mr. Reddy alleged that the previous BJP government had notified the delimitation committing multiple violations and on the same argument, the present government sought time to redo the same, to which the court agreed. Besides, ward demarcation was done to favour the BJP MLAs, he alleged; in many areas, wards were demarcated in such a way that the streets located next to BBMP ward offices in the 198 wards set up were clubbed with faraway wards. This was done to allegedly split or consolidate votes, he said.
On the other hand, in some Assembly segments, the number of wards were either increased or cut down not based on population, but based on voter base. “For instance, in RR Nagar, the number of wards have gone up from 9 to 13, while in Jayanagar, it was cut down from 7 to 6. These were done on the insistence of local MLAs and MPs. Every single mistake carried out by the previous government will be rectified. In Shivajinagar and Shantinagar, boundaries were demarcated to split minority votes,” Mr. Reddy alleged.
On being asked what steps will be taken by the new government on demarcation, he said a deliberation will be held to arrive at a proper decision. Mr. Reddy said the previous government did not follow Delimitation of Ward Guidelines, 2014, for urban local bodies. As per this guideline, procedure of deviation is allowed to an extent of 10%, but he alleged that the deviation was more than 12%.
Mr. Reddy pointed out that the approach for delimitation should be bottom up: the revenue officials draw boundaries based on population and other factors. In the latest work, this approach was missing and officials were ignored, he added.
