Govt mulling law to improve Bengaluru's administration

The government is mulling a new and independent act for Bengaluru city to improve the quality of administration in the IT capital, Law Minister T B Jayachandra said today. "We are interested in restructuring. Bengaluru is one of the biggest cities in the world governed under municipality act; we don't have any independent act. We must have an independent act for Bengaluru itself," he told reporters here.

He was speaking after a SC bench today asked the government to complete by October 5 the process of elections to civuic body, the city civic body, for which polls were scheduled for July 28 by the State Election Commission (SEC).

The SC set aside a single bench order of the HC, which directed the SEC to conduct the polls by August 5, on an appeal by the government to postpone the election to re-draw the corporation map and form five municipal corporations. Jayachandra said Bengaluru cannot be governed under municipality act and "you can't compare it with other municipality. The new act will be in our interest. Our priorities are restructuring, bringing a new law."

On today's Supreme Court verdict, he said government's priority is delimitation and to conduct elections on the basis of the 2011 census. "We will try to hold elections within that time frame. Congress is ready for elections. Ours is a party with 125 years history, we will never fear elections," he said, as the government was accused of running away from polls fearing defeat, by the Opposition.

Reacting to the verdict, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Jagadish Shettar said Congress is scared of defeat and so they want to postpone elections by "hook or crook".

"It is a Supreme Court verdict, it is binding on all. So whatever be the verdict, we will have to accept it and fight the election," Shettar said.