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Bengaluru: The State Election Commission (SEC) on Monday published the election dates for 60 urban local bodies in Karnataka, which have remained without elected representatives for the last 3-4 years. These include 9 ULBs where polls were not held on account of reservation disputes. This, amid fears of the Covid-19 cluster formations in the state and the new strain of Omicron creating a worldwide panic.
The elections will be held on December 27, with the results to be announced December 30. The dates for the ULB elections were announced after the Karnataka high court, which was hearing a series of petitions on the elections to these 51 ULBs asked the SEC as to when it could hold them.
“When the HC asked us, we informed the court that the SEC was ready to hold the polls as early as December if the state government issued the reservation of wards in these 51 ULBs. Accordingly, the government issued the reservation list on November 27 and we issued it today,” said SEC commissioner B Basavaraju.
Basavaraju said the SEC was confident of holding the polls without a glitch, as it already had the previous experience of hosting the GP polls between the Covid-19 first and second wave in December 2020. “The experience has helped us to prepare for any kind of eventuality, if at all there is a third wave,” said the commissioner.
It is said the elections to several of these ULBs were pending since 2017-18, with polls having not been conducted for one litigation or another against the government over reservation issues. With the HC clearing the way for this, the SEC is now going to host the elections. Apart from the fresh polls to 51 ULBs, the SEC has also announced the same dates for the bypolls to be held to 109 wards in 9 ULBs. Most ULBs are town municipal corporations and few city municipal corporations.
The elections will be yet another test for chief minister Basavraj Bommai, after the bypolls and the MLC elections, to prove his leadership. For the Congress and JD(S), it will be an indicator for its ground support before heading to 2023 elections.
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