Bengaluru: Ahead of the elections to the five newly formed Bengaluru city corporations, the Congress party reported receiving 963 applications across 369 wards. However, the party had no applicants in 45 wards as of Sunday.The Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) held a meeting of the aspirants to the city corporation councils Sunday, which was attended by KPCC president DK Shivakumar and the Bengaluru district Congress leadership. Shivakumar gave the aspirants 15 days to verify voter lists at each booth level if they wanted the party’s ticket. “If you are not verifying the draft voter list by visiting each house, you are not prepared for the polls,” he said, directing Congress workers to look for discrepancies in voter lists ahead of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR). The city corporations are currently in the process of mapping the voter lists, while the state election commission (SEC) has released the draft voter list.“SIR is a big danger. Voters need to submit applications to retain their voting rights. This is anti-democratic. Even the courts didn’t value Mamata Banerjee’s pleas against SIR, though she herself argued in court,” he said. Shivakumar also said he was not satisfied with the ward-wise reservation formula. “Don’t think I am satisfied with the reservations. I know there are some problems,” he said, adding that the civic polls will not be put off at any cost.He also urged the applicants to highlight the impact of the Congress govt’s five guarantee schemes.‘SIR is Special Intensive Rigging’Former Rajya Sabha MP MV Rajeev Gowda said the SIR should be understood as Special Intensive Rigging. “SIR needs all voters added after 2002 to prove their documents and residential status. We need to handle this carefully,” he said, urging applicants to undertake ‘Ward Padayatra’ and come out with ward-level manifestos.Congress leaders also advised the party workers to use social media effectively to counter BJP. They urged workers to take note of the recent social media trends wherein videos of Narendra Modi’s past speeches on gas from open drains powering tea stalls went viral. “BJP has been trolling Rahul Gandhi for over a decade. This is our opportunity to teach them a lesson. We must use these trends to our advantage by sharing such posts widely,” Congress MLC DT Srinivas said.——INSET: Two new corporations to be formed:DK Shivakumar announced plans to form two more city corporations around Bengaluru or merge some areas amongst the corporations. “Some areas of Byatarayanapura in north Bengaluru and some areas near Whitefield and Electronics City may be carved into two new corporations. We will be discussing this plan over the next two days with MLAs,” he said.Shivakumar clarified this plan will not interfere with the upcoming polls to the five corporations. “We formed the five new corporations to decentralise governance and strengthen the city financially. We can form two more in future,” he said.
