The past year will be remembered as a watershed year when the Bengaluru government was finally restructured. While the civic administration has shifted to a five-corporation arrangement, a new body headed by the Chief Minister called the Greater Bengaluru Authority has brought all the semi-state cities on one platform for the first time ever at the city-wide level.
However, in September 2025, when five new corporations were created, the city also clocked five years without an elected council, a full council term. Like every year, for the past five years, the civic polls seem to be approaching anytime. But given past experience, no one is ready to believe that elections will actually take place until they actually do.
Two models
In 2007, the BJP-JDS government led by HD Kumaraswamy expanded the civic boundaries of Bengaluru from the earlier 225 km2 to 709 km2 and created the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) and added several city and town municipal corporations in addition to 110 villages.
However, this experiment soon failed. The previous Congress regime led by Siddaramaiah claimed that the BBMP was unmanageable and proposed setting up of several corporations in 2014. For a decade now, Congress and BJP-JDS have stuck to their models and for more than a decade there has been no restructuring.
It was in 2015 that the BBMP Restructuring Committee recommended the creation of multiple corporations. However, the governor sent a bill seeking to implement this for presidential assent. With the courts ordering the government to hold civic polls immediately, it was put on the back burner.
The BJP government that came to power in 2019 pushed for the BBMP they created when they were in power and introduced a new dedicated law to govern the city – the BBMP Act, 2020, which the Congress called a “missed opportunity to fix the deficit in Bengaluru’s governance”.
GBA and five companies
Once they returned to power in 2023, the Congress reconstituted the BBMP Restructuring Committee as the Bengaluru Brand Committee, which introduced the Greater Bengaluru Governance Bill in 2024. However, the government proposed its own bill, taking only the basic structure from the proposal submitted by the committee, and presented it to the Assembly in July 2024 and was finally passed by the House in March 2024. 2025. It was notified in April and the Greater Bengaluru Administration Act, 2024 came into force on 15 May 2025.
With that, Congress finally got around to fixing city government after more than a decade of back-and-forth. However, the Supreme Court is debating several motions challenging this law.
The state government announced the boundaries of the five corporations in September 2025. With the appointment of commissioners and other officers, the corporations have already taken off. The main question is, is there a qualitative difference in city governance with a multi-corporation setup? The jury is still out.
Meanwhile, all the city’s parastatals from the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) to the city police are working in tandem for the first time, giving up the earlier threat of agencies working in silos and at cross-purposes. This is expected to have a positive impact on city governance.
Will there be an election in 2026?
Since several corporations are also being formed, there seems to be no defense against the city’s civic election being disrupted. The state government has given an undertaking before the Supreme Court to notify ward delimitation by November 15, 2025 and ward reservation list by December 15, 2025.
The GBA announced demarcated departments – 369 across five corporations, up from 198 earlier for the same area – on 19 November. He is yet to announce the department booking list.
Meanwhile, OBC groups have objected to the departmental reservation list being made as per the Justice K. Bhaktavatsala commission report, which recommended going ahead with 32% reservation for OBCs. The groups argued that the Supreme Court-mandated triple test, particularly identifying politically backward communities, has not happened in the state and demanded that a new Commission be set up. If either the government sets up a new Commission or if the reservation list based on the recommendations of the Bhaktavatsala Commission is challenged, it is likely to further delay the civic polls in the state.
Meanwhile, in a recent state cabinet meeting, it was informally discussed that the civic polls should be held in April-May 2026, sources said.
Published – 21 Dec 2025 21:04 IST
