Elections to the 12 Standing Committees of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) have been scheduled on Monday. This is the third time that elections have been scheduled, but there are doubts about whether they will be held.
According to sources in the BJP, which is the ruling party in the BBMP council, the party is yet to take a call on whether followers of the newly elected MLAs, who have recently come into the party fold, should be given the post of chairperson of a few committees.
The newly elected MLAs – S.T. Somashekhar (Yeshwantpur), K. Gopalaiah (Mahalakshmi Layout) and B.A. Basavaraju (K.R. Puram) – reportedly want councillors from their constituencies (who have joined the BJP with them) to be given the post of chairperson of a few committees, especially Taxation and Finance, Town Planning, Major Works and Ward Works. This demand is reportedly not sitting well with long-time councillors of the BJP.
“A group of councillors is upset at being sidelined. They have urged the BJP leadership to take into account the work they have put in for the party. The BJP leadership has also been asked to ensure that only those who have won from the party be given the post of chairperson,” sources said.
According to Ruling Party Leader K. Muneendra Kumar, a meeting will be held on Saturday with senior party leaders, including MPs and MLAs, to discuss the issue and chose the candidates. He ruled out the possibility of postponement of the elections again.
The opposition Congress has sought disqualification of 14 councillors for anti-party activities and campaigning against the party’s candidates in the recently held bypolls to four Assembly constituencies in the city. The Congress had issued show cause notices to the 14 councillors.
Opposition Leader Abdul Wajid has urged the BBMP Commissioner to disqualify the 14 councillors. He wants the councillors to be disqualified before the elections.
“We want to ensure that these 14 councillors are not given even a member's post in any of the 12 Standing Committees,” he told The Hindu .
All these developments have led to uncertainty over elections being held on Monday.
The elections were to be held along with that of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor. However, they were postponed due to lack of quorum. They was later scheduled on December 4. However, with the bypolls being held on December 5, the councillors decided to give the elections a miss.
