By IANS,
Bangalore : Around eight million Bangaloreans battling power and water shortage, pollution, traffic snarls and mounting garbage are pinning hopes on a new civic body they will get Monday to reverse the worsening living conditions in the country’s tech hub.
About 46 percent of the city’s 6.6 million eligible voters cast their ballots March 28 to elect 198 representatives to run the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike or Greater Bangalore City Corporation and their choice will be known Monday when the votes are counted.
The Bangalore voters got the opportunity to choose their representatives to govern the city after a delay of three years as the old 100-member Bangalore City Corporation made way for the expanded civic body with the inclusion of newly urbanized adjoining areas.
Since November 2006, the city has been ruled by administrators appointed by the government as elections were put off to rework the wards to keep pace with Bangalore’s expansion.
With the city’s infrastructure growing at a snail’s pace compared to rapid growth in the population as Bangalore became a centre of information technology and bio-technology, the tech hub’s tale is one of shortages.
Daily power cuts for long duration in the summer, scramble for drinking waters in several parts of the city, narrow roads incapable of taking the burgeoning vehicular traffic, piles of garbage in most of the residential areas, potholed roads have come to symbolize the once pensioners’ paradise.
The three major political parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruling Karnataka for the first time, the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular have promised to solve all these problems if voted to power.
There is apprehension among them that the verdict Monday may not give clear majority to any party. BJP hopes to capture power in the city also with the help of independents. Congress and JD-S are talking of coming together to keep BJP away from power.
Since electronic voting machines were used, the results would be out by noon as counting starts at 8 a.m.
Winning the elections, the third major poll in Karnataka in two years, is a prestige issue for the three parties.
The BJP wants to rule Bangalore after capturing power in the state in the May 2008 assembly polls and bagging 19 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats from Karnataka in the April-May 2009 general elections.
The Congress is desperate for a morale boosting victory as it has been a down-hill story for the party since it lost power in 2004.
The JD-S wants a good show in Bangalore to get over the tag of a party with support base only in rural areas.
The latest poll too had its share of people with criminal records contesting – around 35 out of the 1,300 candidates.
The Congress fielded eight candidates with criminal records, the JD-S seven and the BJP four on the grounds that only cases were filed against them and none have been convicted.
The BJP contested in 197 wards, the Congress in 196 and the JD-S in 194. The rest of the candidates are independents or belong to smaller political parties.