BENGALURU:
With the city civic body polls around the corner, the Karnataka cabinet on Thursday discussed about increasing the number of wards under Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) from 198 to 225.
It also discussed about seeking permission from the High Court, about postponing the polls, in case the ward delimitation has to happen. “We have discussed about increasing the number of wards under BBMP, we will have a separate meeting for it. According to a thinking it has to be 225 wards from 198 wards now,” Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J C Madhuswamy said.
Speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting here, he said a joint select committee of the legislature is looking into the BBMP bill that government had placed before the assembly, and so the matter will be raised at the committee meeting and accordingly a decision taken.
“But, the government’s thinking is the number of wards should be increased, for about 40,000-42,000 population there should be a ward,” he said.
“If the ward delimitation has to happen we will have to seek permission from the court to postpone the elections for some time, as the term (of current BBMP council) ends later this month, we will have approach court before that.” To a question, whether areas under BBMP will be increased while increasing the number of wards, the minister said, more areas will get added and more parts of Bengaluru will be considered. The number of zones will increase from current 8 to 15. “All these things will be discussed at the joint select committee meeting scheduled for tomorrow,” he added.
The BJP government at the last moment during the assembly session in March had introduced The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Bill that promises a 5-year mayoral term, area sabhas, among other reforms. It was subsequently referred to the Joint Select Committee headed by BJP MLA S Raghu. (PTI)
