The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Allow election panel to rectify quota anomalies: Congress

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Sunday, May 06, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Allow election panel to rectify quota anomalies: Congress

Special Correspondent

Party submits memorandum to Governor on urban local body polls

PLEA TO GOVERNOR: Congress leaders H.K. Patil, N. Dharam Singh, M. Mallikarjun Kharge, D.K. Shivakumar and others coming out of the Raj Bhavan after submitting a memorandum to Governor T.N. Chaturvedi on Saturday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murth y

BANGALORE: The Congress on Saturday urged Governor T.N. Chaturvedi to direct the State Government to delegate powers to the State Election Commission to rectify anomalies in the reservation of wards in 207 urban local bodies.

A delegation led by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president M. Mallikarjun Kharge called on the Governor at the Raj Bhavan and told him that the Government was misusing its powers to deliberately put off elections to the local bodies. Leaders of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and Council N. Dharam Singh and H.K. Patil, the former Ministers R.V. Deshpande, D.K. Shivakumar and R. Ramalinga Reddy, MLAs and others, accompanied Mr. Kharge.

Mr. Kharge later told presspersons that "fearing defeat, the ruling Janata Dal (S) and the BJP postponed the elections".

Memorandum given

In a two-page memorandum to Mr. Chaturvedi, the Congress said the Government had failed to hold elections to city corporations, city municipal councils, town municipal councils and taluk panchayats though several months had passed after the expiry of their term of five years.

The State Election Commission had filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court seeking a direction to the Government to complete the delimitation of constituencies and demarcation of reservation for various wards.

Following the court order, the Government completed the process of delimitation and reservation of wards. Subsequently, the State Election Commission announced the calendar of events for elections. But some aggrieved persons approached the High Court challenging the reservation on the ground that it was not done in accordance with the provisions of the law.

`Lapses admitted'

Mr. Kharge said the Government had also stated before the court that there were lapses in the reservation of wards. "It is a clear admission made by the Government that its intentions are to avoid the elections and defeat the very concept of local self-government."

The High Court gave the Government nine weeks' time to rectify the lapses in the reservation of wards, and the elections to the local bodies were postponed.

Therefore, the memorandum said, the rectification of anomalies should be left to the State Election Commission.

The former Ministers Kagodu Thimmappa and H.M. Revanna and the MLAs Prasanna Kumar and Ivan Nigli and their supporters, who arrived a few minutes late and were not allowed inside the Raj Bhavan, shouted slogans against the Raj Bhavan officials and the police.

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