The New Indian Express 24.02.2010
BBMP ward reservation list, once again
BANGALORE: Caught in a whirl of its own making with regard to the BBMP polls, a reluctant state government notified the reservation of wards late evening on Tuesday.
“The list has been notified. We have given the general public seven days to state their objections or suggestions” Urban Development Deputy Secretary M Sonnad told Express.
The draft list may be submitted to the State Election Commission as it is on Wednesday, he added.
The present reservation of wards is as per the collective population of the Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes in the entire BBMP limits. The division bench of the High Court had on December 8 ordered it so.
Earlier on Tuesday, the State Election Commission had followed up on the Supreme Court’s dismissal of the state government’s special leave petition. It filed an appeal in the HC saying that the State government be directed to notify and issue the list on reservation of wards. The HC set deadline for the completion of BBMP polls being March 30.
SEC Secretary D K Ravindranath told reporters that they will be ready to announce the schedule of elections a day after they receive the list on wards reservation.
Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa is learnt to have inked the notification on wards reservation after he and his senior cabinet colleagues discussed the issue with higher officials of the urban development department. But the government may yet go before the High Court and appeal that it be allowed time to present the budget, it is said. The High Court’s deadline for the government to submit the list had also expired on Monday.
Dismissing the government’s SLP seeking three months time for holding BBMP polls, the Apex Court had told the it that problems any in notifying the list may be taken before the High Court.
