The State government notified the draft of the newly delimited 243 wards of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike on Thursday. The government has provided 15 days time to submit any objections to the draft.
The number of wards has increased from 198 to 243, with the civic body carving out 45 new wards in the existing area itself. Most of the Assembly constituencies in the outer zones such as Mahadevapura (from eight wards to 13), Bommanahalli (eight to 14), R.R. Nagar (nine to 14), and Bengaluru South (seven to 12) have added the most number of new wards. Shivajinagar, Chamarajpet, and Jayanagar are the only three Assembly constituencies which have lost wards — each of them will have six wards as against seven earlier. Interestingly, many of the core area constituencies have also added wards — Basavanagudi (from six to seven wards), C.V. Raman Nagar (from seven to nine wards).
Senior Congress leader Ramalinga Reddy, who has repeatedly come down against the draft as prepared by the “RSS” solely with the interest of the BJP in mind, said the party would study the draft and submit its objections, and if needed, they were open to challenge it legally.
Accepting an affidavit submitted by the State government, the Supreme Court on May 20 provided eight weeks’ time to complete the delimitation of wards and fix the OBC reservation, and hold the much-delayed civic polls soon after. The government has now notified the draft in the fifth week and the process will take another three weeks, just in time for the deadline, sources said.
Meanwhile, the Justice Bhaktavatsalam committee is yet to complete the study of OBC representation in the civic body and fix the reservation, which too will be completed within the eight-week deadline, sources in the government said.
