Congress coup: BBMP superceded, administrator to run city

Bengaluru: Exactly a week before the term of the city behemoth Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike would have ended on April 23, the state cabinet on Friday quietly took control of the city from under the nose of the BJP-dominated BBMP by superceding the Corporation. The official order will be out on Saturday.

The decision to supercede the BBMP would allow the government to take control of the city corporation through an administrator for six months. The coup de grace was delivered in the form of the Rajkumar Kataria report on the many alleged irregularities in the BJP-ruled BBMP, which had been submitted a fortnight ago, and to which the body had not yet responded.

The Siddaramaiah led Congress government is now expected to drive the final nail in the BJP's coffin by pushing through a special legislation to pass a bill on trifurcation, which will be sent to the Governor for his consent.

Government sources have told DC that making the civic body defunct was a calculated gamble. “This decision will enable the government to say that there is no BBMP when the case pertaining to holding BBMP elections comes up on Monday. Once the BBMP council is removed, the government can postpone the elections unless the high court issues a clear directive to hold the elections,” sources said.

The state government wants a minimum of six months to a year, before it holds BBMP polls. Until then it will appoint an administrator to run the city so that it can take credit for a better administered city than the one run by the BJP dominated body.

The government hopes to convince the high court that a trifurcation of BBMP will be better for administration. Congress legislators meeting at a private hotel have told chief minister, Siddaramaiah that the D.K. Ravi case dented the party's image and it was imperative that polls were postponed. They also said that they should make contingency plans in the event the High Court directed that polls be held.

The government plans to post an efficient administrator to streamline finances and introduce the populist schemes in the state budget before going for BBMP polls. The issues like pending bills, loans and garbage crisis will then be addressed.

The government is planning to appoint either retired IAS and former BBMP commissioner Siddaiah or another IAS officer K.S. Sathyamurthy as administrator. The government also wants to give a free hand to the administrator to collect the betterment fee. In this way, it can collect at least Rs 4,000 crores in revenue.