2015 Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike election

← 2010 22 April 2015 TBA →
198 of 198 seats in theBruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike 100 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	49.36% ( 5.32%)[1]
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader G. Manjunath Raju[2][3] B. N. Manjunath Reddy - Party BJP INC JD(S) Leader's seat Kadu Malleshwara Ward Madiwala Ward - Seats before 111 65 15 Seats won 100 76 14 Seat change 11 9 1
Mayor before election N. Shanthakumari BJP ElectedMayor B. N. Manjunath Reddy[2] INC[4]

The2015 Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (Greater Bengaluru City Corporation) election was an election held on 22 April 2015 in all198 Wards of Bangalore India.^[5]

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The tenure of theBruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) was scheduled to end on 22 April 2015.^[6] A new election was necessary to elect newCorporators andMayors by that time. The Government ofKarnataka intended to trifurcate the BBMP and was not notified of the elections until the end of March 2015.^[7] On 30 March, theBharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Corporators B. Somashekar (Shakambari Nagar Ward) andC. K. Ramamurthy (Pattabhirama Nagar Ward) filed a written petition to conduct elections before the end of the tenure.^[8]

On 10 March 2015, the court ordered notices to the state government, thestate election commission, and the BBMP regarding a petition from two corporators seeking directions to hold municipal polls on the expiry of the term. JusticeBV Nagarathna sought information from the government about the poll preparedness and whether the urban development department had finalized the roster (ward-wise reservation for SC, ST, women, and OBCs).^[9][10][11] On 17 April 2015, the State Cabinet decided to supersede the BBMP, and a notification of the same was issued on 18 April to avoid conducting polls to the civic body in April 2015. However, the ward reservation list was already published on 13 April.^[12][13]

If the state government supersedes the council before the end of the term, it gets six months to hold elections for the civic body. The government sought to dissolve the BBMP and replace it with three corporations. The Rajendra Kataria Committee reported on various financial and administrative irregularities in the floating of tenders, execution of civil works, and failure to generate revenue through hoardings in the BBMP ruled by the BJP during the council's term from 2010 to 2015. This report was cited as a reason to supersede the civic body.^{[citation needed]}

The Cabinet also approved an amendment bill to constitute three new corporations to replace the BBMP. The Karnataka Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill, 2014, was planned to be tabled at the one-day special session of the state legislature on 20 April 2015. The government decided to call the special session to promulgate an ordinance, but it was stalled by GovernorVajubhai Vala, who stated that he was not satisfied with it. Amidst stiff opposition from both the BJP andJanata Dal (Secular), the Karnataka Legislative Assembly passed a bill to trifurcate the BBMP with a voice vote on 20 April. Following this, many pro-Kannada organizations and the Youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party protested the trifurcation.^[14]

After failing to get the Governor's assent for an ordinance on the trifurcation, a one-day session of the Karnataka legislature was convened to pass the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Bill 2015. Opposition maintained reservations about the government's attempt to trifurcate the BBMP, but the time bill was introduced byIndian National Congress in the House to the time it was passed. In fact, they walked into the well of the House and tore a copy of the bill as the voice vote was being conducted. As the House met for the day, the BJP, led by Opposition LeaderJagadish Shettar, demanded that the issue of crop damage due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms should be taken up first, but SpeakerKagodu Thimmappa disagreed. The opposition criticized the government for going ahead with the trifurcation plan while the committee created to study the matter had yet to submit its final report. It called the government's act an attempt to postpone BBMP elections, with fear of losing them.^[15]

The division bench of the Karnataka High Court also refused to stay a single bench order to conduct the elections before 30 May. On 24 April, the Karnataka High Court put off elections to the BBMP civic body. Setting aside a single bench order, which directed the state election commission (SEC) to conduct the civic poll by 30 May, a division bench headed by Chief Justice D.H. Waghela and Justice Ram Mohan Reddy told the state government to hold the elections by six months, as per the 74th constitutional amendment. The state government filed a review petition on 7 April, seeking a stay on the March 30 order of Justice B.V. Nagarathna to the SEC for holding the civic poll by 30 May, as its five-year term was ending on 22 April. State Advocate General Ravivarma Kumar assured the bench that the state government would abide by its order and help the SEC to hold the election in 198 wards across the city within six months.^{[citation needed]}

The two original petitioners (C. K. Ramamurthy and B. Somashekar), who were BJP corporators in the dissolved BBMP, said they would approach theSupreme Court the next week against the postponement. The state government sought more time to hold the poll on the grounds that delimitation of the wards, restructuring of the civic body, and reservation in many wards, as per the 2011 census, were not completed for various reasons.^[16]

The State government claimed that trifurcation of the BBMP was necessary to deliver better services to the citizens, while the BJP and the Janata Dal (Secular) opposed the move, claiming it was a ploy to postpone polls.^[17]G. Kumar Naik took charge as the 61st Commissioner of the BBMP on 20 April, two days after the state government issued an order on superseding the BBMP.^[18] The Karnataka Congress government's bill to divide Bengaluru city into three or smaller administrative units was passed by the state legislative assembly on 21 July, after the legislative council, where the BJP opposition had a majority, rejected the bill 20 July.

The Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Bill 2015 had initially been passed by the state assembly on 20 April, but was defeated by the council on 20 July. The assembly, where the Congress has a clear majority of 123 members out of 224, passed the bill again on 21 July to send it to Governor Vajubhai Vala for his assent. Under the proposed law, the urban area of Bengaluru (the BBMP) was planned to be redrawn as smaller corporations. On 13 July, an expert committee on the Restructuring of the BBMP submitted a recommended division of the BBMP into five municipal corporations, with mayors to be directly elected by the people for the purpose of smooth administration.^[19]

The passage of the new law was expected to give the Congress government more time to conduct elections to the city council, which had been ordered by the high court and theSupreme Court after the Congress government dissolved the city council in April and took administrative control of the city.^[20] The Supreme Court's order brought certainty to the timeline for the BBMP elections after a few months of legal gridlock. The court extended the deadline for the completion of BBMP polls to 28 August.^[21] Setting the process for the August 22 election of the BBMP into motion, the commissioner of the BBMP, G. Kumar Naik, issued the notification on 3 August. A calendar of events was released by Naik as an affirmation of the notification, announcing the election dates issued by State Election Commissioner P. N. Srinivasachary on 16 July.^[22]

A newmayor was elected for a term of one year, andcorporators were in office for 5 years.^[23]

The schedule of the election was announced by theState Election Commission on 16 July 2015. The SEC announced that polling would be held in a single phase on 22 August and that results would be declared on 25 August. It also declared that the provisions of theModel Code of Conduct came into force with immediate effect with the announcement.^[24]

Mallesh T