File photo: A cityscape of Bengaluru.
The Election Commission in Bengaluru has announced the schedule for the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike or BBMP elections. The polls will be held on July 28 and the counting of votes on July 31.
A lot of political drama preceded in the build-up of the polls. The BBMP's ruling BJP's term came to an end earlier this year, but the state government had hoped that elections could be delayed - saying they wanted to trifurcate the body first. The ruling Congress said this was to make the huge city, with its many civic problems, easier to administer. But the Opposition held protests against the trifurcation and insisted that the Congress was only trying to delay the municipal polls as the party felt it would not fare well.
The matter went all the way to the Supreme Court on a Special Leave Petition filed by Independent Rajya Sabha lawmaker Rajeev Chandrashekhar. The Court ruled that the elections are to be held before August.
Bengaluru is a city that has seen several issues of civic mismanagement in the recent past - from garbage to bad roads - and many citizens groups and NGOs are urging people to elect the corporation with diligence if they wish to make a difference to the way the city is run.