Bengaluru, Dec 4 (TIWN) The Karnataka High Court on Friday directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to declare elections to 198 wards of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) as early as possible, within two-and-a-half months from now.

A division bench of Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice S. Vishwajith Shetty pronounced the judgement.  Last week, the same division bench had directed the SEC to hold gram panchayat polls and based on the directions, the SEC moved swiftly and announced the dates for the elections to the gram panchayats in two phases.  With the high court setting up a deadline of six weeks to the SEC after the Karnataka government finalises its reservations in four weeks' time, the elections to the BBMP will have to be held within the next two-and-a-half months.  Though the bench gave six weeks' time, it directed the Karnataka government to publish the final notification of reservations for 198 wards as per the Delimitation Notification 2020 within a month.  This is a setback for the state government, which tried to defer the elections by amending the KMC Act, to increase the number of wards from 198 to 243 during the last legislative session.