GBA seeks Supreme Court nod to postpone Bengaluru civic polls to December, cites Karnataka SIR
The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) has urged the Supreme Court to extend the deadline for conducting the elections to 369 wards across five city corporations
The Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) has urged the Supreme Court to extend the deadline for conducting the elections to 369 wards across five city corporations in Bengaluru by four months — from August 31 to December 31 — citing “severe logistical challenges” due to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in Karnataka. Application filed by the Chief Commissioner of the GBA follows stringent observations made by the court in a May 20 hearing, accusing the local body of even employing “delaying tactics” to postpone civic polls in Bengaluru. The time limit for the civic polls had earlier been June 30. The court, on May 20, had said this would be GBA’s “last chance”, and specifically barred further extensions of time for the conduct of the elections.
In its applications filed on July 9, the GBA said the whole administrative machinery and human resources of the five city corporations were fully engaged in the SIR exercise. The SIR has claimed the services of 8872 booth level officers, 938 booth level officers’ supervisors, 28 election registration officers, 75 assistant election registration officers, besides nodal officers, observers, trainers, resource persons, etc. Personnel had been drawn from municipal corporations, GBA and other bodies. The Chief Commissioner, who is also the District Election Officer, said SIR entailed house-to-house enumeration by each booth level officer, followed by at least three visits for households which were vacant. The application said Bengaluru alone accounted for over 1.03 crore voters, constituting approximately one sixth of the 5.54 crore total voters in the State.
The electorate was spread across approximately 40 lakh residences, requiring the absolute and undivided commitment of booth level officers, staff and officers of the GBA, the five city corporations and other departments.z As of present date, the administrative machinery has successfully reached 51.8% of the target population, having distributed enumeration forms to approximately 53.85 lakh. The process of collecting these forms and preparing the draft electoral roll is currently underway and shall be completed by August 5, the date of publication of the draft electoral roll. Post the publication of the draft roll, each electoral registration officer in Bengaluru would be deciding close to one lakh claims of inclusion/exclusion in the electoral roll by September 25. The process was expected to prove to be a unique administrative challenge in Bengaluru due to the frequent intra-city migration and shifting of residences of voters.
The BriefWire