Bengaluru: The Bengaluru city corporation elections are set to be a crucial test for the Congress government in Karnataka, with the outcome not just expected to be a judgement of its governance in the metropolis, but also likely to shape upcoming rural body polls.
The Greater Bengaluru Authority—formerly the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike—has not held elections since the last term ended in September 2020, leaving India’s IT capital of 14 million residents without an elected council for nearly six years.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed the Karnataka government and the state election commission (SEC) to hold GBA polls by 30 June.
Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, who also holds the Bengaluru development portfolio, told reporters after the top court’s directive that the government would not seek more time.
“We have confidence in the work we have done, our guarantees, we are changing Bengaluru and the people will give us their confidence and we will win in all five city corporations,” Shivakumar said.
GBA currently includes five civic bodies, which comprise 369 municipal wards. Corporation elections are expected to be followed by zila parishad and taluk panchayat polls, which have been pending since 2021.
BJP’s upper hand in past performances
The stakes are high for the Congress, which–despite storming to power statewide in 2023–won 12 of Bengaluru’s 28 assembly constituencies, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept the remaining 16 seats.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won all four parliamentary seats in Bengaluru, including the Congress’s stronghold of Bengaluru Rural, which was previously held by Shivakumar’s brother D.K. Suresh. The Congress was restricted to just nine of 28 seats across Karnataka in the Lok Sabha polls.
Before that, the 2019 mass defection of MLAs led to the Congress ceding three seats to the BJP, and the Janata Dal(Secular) losing two more. Together, these five constituencies contributed to almost half of the voters in Bengaluru, according to Election Commission data.
The challenge for the coming civic polls is perceived to be more difficult because of the BJP-JD(S) alliance in the state. But it isn’t clear yet if the two parties will fight the corporation elections together or separately.
“Let them (BJP & JDS) do whatever they want – fight separately or together. There would be a direct fight if they had the same arrangement they had for parliamentary elections,” Shivakumar said, adding that a head-on fight would be better than a triangular contest.
State BJP President B.Y. Vijayendra told reporters Tuesday that Shivakumar should focus on governance rather than worrying about the opposition alliance.
“As far as D.K. Shivakumar is concerned, being a district incharge minister, it is his responsibility to fix up the issues in Bengaluru. Not only Bengaluru, the entire country is cursing looking at the fate of the city while D.K.Shivakumar is busy threatening the locals in the city,” Vijayendra said.
In the 2010 Bengaluru civic polls, BJP secured 111 wards against Congress’s 65 and JD(S)’s 15. The 2015 civic elections saw the BJP win 100 of 198 wards, with Congress at 76, JD(S) at 14, and Independents at eight.
The last term of elected councillors to the corporation ended in 2020, but polls have not been held since.
Infra woes
The political test comes as tech industry captains, startup founders and others have criticised the poor condition of public infrastructure in the city. Bengaluru has grappled with unplanned growth, traffic congestion, crumbling roads, depleting water supplies, eroding green cover and incomplete projects for years.
In September last year, Rajesh Yabaji, chief executive and co-founder of logistics firm BlackBuck, announced the company was relocating from the city’s Outer Ring Road technology corridor after nine years because of pothole-riddled roads there.
Shivakumar had called this “blackmail”, drawing further criticism for allegedly dismissing concerns about one of India’s most significant technology corridors.
Other prominent business leaders such as Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Mohandas Pai have also spoken about civic apathy in Bengaluru over the past few months.
Critics have accused successive governments of leaving Bengaluru in worse condition, earning it the unwelcome distinction of becoming a “template of urban ruin”.
Shivakumar has been targeted for proposing big-ticket projects like the Tunnel Road and Skydeck instead of completing the Metro network and other public infrastructure.
City-based public infrastructure expert Ashwin Mahesh said quick fixes were not real development. “There is not much that can be accomplished by scurrying about and appearing to do things. That is activity, not achievement. Without fundamental reforms, GBA, BDA, the corporations and the parastatals will not be able to do much. They can lay a little more tar, clear (not clean!) a few more streets and footpaths, build a few more flyovers, etc. But that won’t do much to overcome the challenges we face…” Mahesh said in a post on X.
Bengaluru contributes nearly half of Karnataka’s total GSDP and is home to almost a quarter of its population, attracting migrants and others into the city over the decades. Though successive governments have pumped money into projects to decongest the streets or build new infrastructure, they have often been criticised for lack of planning and vision that has added to its chaos.
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