BBMP poll: Congress government looks to apex court

Bengaluru: After being handed down a stricture and told to cough up Rs 10,000 as cost for each of the four petitioners by the Karnataka High Court in the BBMP election case, the state government on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging the verdict of Justice B.V. Nagarathna bench. In effect, the Congress government is challenging the court's order of holding elections. The petition is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday, legal advisor to state government Brijesh Kalappa said.

The main contention of the Karnataka government would be: the reservation matrix worked out based on the 2001 census was erroneous and if the elections were held with the same reservation list, the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe people would lose a large chunk of seats (wards).

“We will request the court to grant some time to work out a fresh reservation matrix based on 2011 census. We will also stress the fact that the government had no mala fide intention to postpone the elections.

“The political climate suits us when the BJP is mired with scams, our campaign would certainly appeal the middle class people. To top it, chief minister, Siddaramaiah toured the city and tried to bring order in the city. So, we have no intention to postpone the polls. Of course, this is a political view, but this is a fact, so even people should not have the impression that we want to get the BBMP elections postponed,” he said.