Elections to 12 Standing Committees of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) failed to take off on Monday, as nobody filed their nominations. This is the third time in four months elections to standing committees have yielded no results as none filed nominations.
“There is a three-day mourning in the State as a mark of respect to the deceased Vishwesha Tirtha of Pejawar Mutt. All councillors have voluntarily not participated in the elections,” said Muneendra Kumar, ruling party leader of BJP in BBMP.
However, sources say at least 15 councillors from Congress and JDS, supporters of rebel MLAs who resigned to join the BJP, have demanded chairmanship of four standing committees that the BJP is not ready to part with. The dispute is yet to be resolved by senior leaders of the party and hence the party has repeatedly boycotted standing committee elections, sources said.
The last time election were scheduled was on December 4, a day before bye-elections to 15 assembly seats in the state. With BJP leaders busy with bye-elections, they had no time to sort out the issues in BBMP and the standing committee elections were boycotted.
A meeting of senior BJP leaders over the issue was scheduled for Saturday evening, when the health of Pejawar seer deteriorated and all senior leaders rushed to Udupi. The meeting was cancelled.
“The next elections will be scheduled in another 15 days and this time we will ensure elections are held,” Mr. Kumar said.
