Bengaluru: Ending an year long wait,  the State Election Commission will issue notification for the conduct of elections to three City Corporations of the State — Mysuru, Shivamogga and Tumakuru — next week.

Addressing a press meet here recently, State Election Commissioner G.S. Sangreshi said that the Commission would issue poll notification for the three City Corporations of Mysuru, Tumakuru and Shivamogga soon.

Quoting a Supreme Court judgement which said that the election can be held as per the  re-drawing (delimitation) of Constituencies and reservation matrix that was in place in the last elections, if the Government failed to do re-drawing and announce reservation matrix afresh, Sangreshi said that the Election Commission is going ahead with the election to the three City Corporations, taking note of this SC ruling.

Referring to Zilla and Taluk Panchayat elections, Sangreshi said that the Government has already issued a notification for delimitation of Constituencies, while the announcement of reservation matrix is still pending.

As such, the Election Commission filed a contempt of Court case against the State Government, which case is scheduled to come up before the Court on Aug. 12.

The Commission will take the next action depending upon the Court order, he said adding that the Commission is fully prepared to hold the ZP and TP elections by the end of December.

Sagreshi further said that the withheld  Rs. 2,100 crore grant of the 15th Finance Commission would not be released if the State Government does not hold local bodies elections and submit  the poll results to the Centre  by Mar.31. The State Election Commission has written a letter to the State Government in this regard, he added.

It may be mentioned here that the election to the 65-ward Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) was last held on Aug.31, 2018, in which none of the three major parties — Congress, BJP and JD(S) — got an absolute majority.