BBMP enters fourth year without elected body

On September 10, the BBMP entered its fourth year without an elected body, making this the second longest period in which the civic body has been under bureaucratic control.

Even as the city’s infrastructure continues to suffer, citizens are concerned about transparency and accountability.

The BBMP’s last elected body expired on September 10, 2020. Additional Chief Secretary Rakesh Singh has been serving as administrator for the majority period of the three subsequent years.

The elected body of councillors — the vital connect between the administration and citizens — plays a crucial role in delivering civic services. The city council would hold meetings every month in which the elected members debated on a wide range of issues, including implementation of civic projects and policies. The process has been totally absent in the last three years.

The civic body has also stopped uploading proceedings cleared by the administrator in the absence of an elected body on the public portal, as it did in the past.

Not the longest period

This period, however, is not the longest without an elected body.

In November 2006, the then state government put off the polls to expand the civic body’s geographical area by including eight smaller corporations and 110 villages into the larger body it called the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). The government eventually held the elections in April 2010.

When the elected government’s term ended in 2015, the government explored the idea of splitting the BBMP into three corporations, but held the elections in four months’ time since the proposal was met with opposition.

This time, the election was first delayed to bring the BBMP under a special law similar to the Karnataka Municipal Act. Sensitive issues like ward delimitation have further put off the polls. Right now, the state government has said it will hold the polls by December.

Alok Prasanna Kumar, co-founder and team lead at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, said the 74th amendment to the Constitution did not fully realise the importance of local governance.

“When elections are not held for a state assembly, the President’s rule is imposed. In contrast, no such provision exists for urban local bodies. The new BBMP Act does not limit the term of an administrator, which used to be six months in total,” he said, lamenting that the absence of an elected body has created a democratic deficit.

He said the court’s intervention has been inconsistent, making one wonder whether holding timely elections for the local body is even mandatory under the Constitution. “As India urbanises and its largest cities grow ever larger, the need for empowered city governments only increases,” Prasanna explained.