More than a month after the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike Bill, 2020, was passed by the State legislature, the government issued two notifications — one on the number of councillors and another on delimitation — on Friday.
The number of councillors in the BBMP will be 243 with immediate effect.
With the number of wards increased from 198 to 243, the delimitation exercise will have to be taken up again. For this, a notification has been issued constituting a four-member Delimitation Commission. The commission, with a tenure of six months, will be headed by the BBMP Commissioner, while the other members are Deputy Commissioner of Bengaluru Urban district and Commissioner of Bangalore Development Authority (BDA); and BBMP’s Special Commissioner (Revenue) will be the member secretary of the commission.
Incidentally, there were objections to the earlier delimitation exercise as well, with civic activists questioning the rationale behind the exercise since it was based on the 2011 Census. The draft notification was issued in March last year and the final notification was issued on June 23. Then, before the amendment to the KMC Act, 1976, when the number of wards was 198, the core zones had lost some wards and outer zones gained a few.
The Supreme Court has issued a stay on the Karnataka High Court order on holding polls to the BBMP council. The matter is scheduled to come up for hearing on February 5, said Abdul Wajid, former Opposition Leader, who went to court seeking polls to the civic body along with M. Shivaraju, also a former Opposition Leader.
“It is wrong for the government to issue these notifications when the matter is being heard by the Supreme Court,” he said.
