Twenty members from local bodies were declared elected unopposed to the Bangalore Metropolitan Planning Committee on Monday.
As many as 18 councillors from the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), comprising 10 from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is ruling the BBMP council, six from the Congress and two from the Janata Dal (Secular), were elected unopposed. The newly elected members include C.K. Ramamurthy, P.N. Sadashiva, A.H. Basavaraju, N.R. Sridhar Reddy, B. Govindaraju, K.N. Geetha Shashikumar, B.S. Manjunath Reddy, S. Raju, G. Manjunath Raju, N. Dayanand, M.K. Gunashekhar, M. Udayshankar, R.S. Sathyanarayana, K. Doddanna, O. Manjunath, Devika Rani Sridhar, T. Thimme Gowda, and L. Nagaratna.
These members had filed their nominations to Regional Commissioner Gaurav Gupta. The election to these posts was scheduled on Tuesday. However, with only 18 members filing nominations, they were all elected unopposed. Sources said that their names were finalised at a meeting on Monday.
For the two posts reserved for gram panchayat members, 17 nominations had been received. However, 15 of them withdrew their nominations, paving the way for Amaresh Reddy, vice-president of Yamare Gram Panchayat in Anekal taluk, and Chikkaraju, vice-president of Kumbalgod Gram Panchayat in Bangalore South taluk, to get elected unopposed.
Meanwhile, MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who welcomed the formation of BMPC, urged the government to ensure citizens’ participation in the planning process. In a letter to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, he said that it had taken 20 years since the 74th Constitutional Amendment to set up the MPC. The MPC, in its current form, does not provide for active participation of citizens. “Without their participation, the MPC is flouting norms and inconsistent with the 74th amendment that envisages a specific role for the ward committees, citizens, residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) and non-governmental organisations. At least two or three RWAs must have representation in the MPC,” he said.
