Janata Dal (S) supremo and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda on Sunday said the State government has violated the constitution by superseding the elected local body Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) before the expiry of the term and opposed trifurcation of the civic body.
Term of the BBMP ends on April 22.
Reneging on its earlier decision, the JD(S) legislators have decided to attend a session of the State Legislature convened by the government on Monday to discuss the Bill on dividing the BBMP into three new corporations. He criticised the Government’s decision to hold a day’s session on trifurcating the BBMP. The BJP legislators too decided to attend the session.
The Government has superseded the BBMP and appointed IAS officers T.M. Vijay Bhaskar and G. Kumar Naik as Administrators and the Commissioner of the BBMP, respectively, on Saturday.
Addressing presspersons at his residence here, JD (S) national president Gowda said the State Election Commission should conduct election based on the existing list of delimitation of wards. A single bench of the Karnataka High Court too had directed the Government to complete election process before May 30.
Noting the Supreme Court rulings on the issue, Mr. Gowda said the Government should divide the BBMP after 2020. “I don’t know what the government will do by holding the session on Monday”, he said.
The Congress feared its defeat in the ensuing BBMP elections and was making all attempts to postpone the elections in the guise of splitting the civic body. Postponing of elections on the pretext of scams in the BBMP was not the sound argument. “Let the government probe all scams after elections to the civic body,” he said.
A similar situation was prevailed in 1995 and his party legislators pressurised him to postpone elections. But the Janata Dal government conducted the elections, the JD (S) leader said.
