Council polls unlikely next month

BENGALURU: Elections to 16 seats of the Legislative Council, falling vacant in June, are unlikely to be held next month as the Election Commission is yet to give its nod for the exercise.The terms of 16 MLCs including Boseraj, H M Revanna, Nasir Ahmed and MC Venugopal of the Congress, T A Sharavana of the JDS and Mallikarjun (independent) who were elected from the Legislative Assembly will end in June, so will the tenures of nominated members Abdul Jabbar, Jayamala, Ivan D’Souza, Iqbal Ahmed and Tippanna Kamakanuru.

The terms of four MLCs who were elected from teachers’ and graduates’ constituencies — Sharanamma Mattur, Puttanna, Chowdareddy and Sankanuru — will also end next month.State Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar said the commission needs 4-5 weeks to conduct the elections.“For the election of MLCs from the Assembly, we need four weeks. For the election of MLCs from graduates’ as well as teachers constituencies, we need at least five weeks as there are more voters,’’ he said.

Sanjiv Kumar said his office had written to the Election Commission of India sometime back on holding the elections and it is yet to reply.A source in the election office in Bengaluru said, “We have less than two weeks in May. The number of corona positive cases is increasing day by day. At this juncture, it is not advisable to conduct elections. We need time to prepare the list of voters and for other procedures. The elections might not happen in June.’’There is also a proposal to postpone the monsoon session of the state legislature to August.