State govt to approach SC on BBMP poll 

BENGALURU: The Karnataka government is approaching the Supreme Court in appeal against the recent High Court direction on conducting BBMP elections at the earliest.Recently, the high court directed the government to conduct BBMP elections within six weeks from the date of issuing reservation notification. A meeting was convened under the chairmanship of Law Minister JC Madhuswamy, along with MLAs from Bengaluru. 

Madhuswamy said that a dedicated BBMP Act is planned for the city and it has to be kept outside the existing Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act. Besides this, the new caste census will be out in 2021, and will give a more accurate picture of the population of Bengaluru. “Based on the latest census report, it will be difficult for us to conduct elections soon, we need time and are planning to approach the apex court,” the minister said.

The minister said that elections cannot be conducted for the existing 198 wards as the State government has already issued notification for 243 wards, and this has been approved by all party legislators. “We are also planning to bring in a separate BBMP bill in this session. Based on this, we will approach the Supreme Court,” he added. BBMP joint legislature committee chairman S Raghu, and MLAs Satish Reddy, SR Vishwanath, N Munirathna, Aravind Limbavali and Ramalinga Reddy were present.