Bengaluru: “The Congress is ready for elections. Our party has a history of 125 years and we will never fear elections. We will try to hold elections within that time frame”, said Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra, reacting to the Supreme Court decision to postpone the elections by eight week.

The state government’s priority is delimitation and to conduct elections on the basis of the 2011 census, he said.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Jagadish Shettar said that the Congress is scared of defeat and was trying to postpone elections by “hook or crook”. He, however, said, “It is a Supreme Court verdict and it is binding on all. Whatever be the verdict we will have to accept it and fight the election.”

Legal and urban experts, including State Election Commission advocate K.N. Phanindra, questioned the logic behind the Supreme Court’s decision to postpone the elections without asking the government to change the delimitation and reservation matrix.

Advocate Pramila Nesargi ridiculed the Supreme Court order, saying, “How can the court violate its own order? When the court has not given any direction on fresh delimitation and reservation, there is no logic in postponing the elections by eight weeks. It has been done only to please the Karnataka government.”

In a major breather to the state government, the Supreme Court on Friday granted eight weeks to hold the BBMP elections. Earlier, following a Karnataka High Court direction, the State Election Commission (SEC) on June 25 announced the calendar of events fixing the BBMP election date for July 28. With the elections postponed, the SEC will now have to issue a fresh notification fixing the new election date and announce a new calendar of events.

The Supreme Court, however, rejected the state government’s appeal for fixing the delimitation and reservation matrix based on the 2011 census. The government argued that members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/STs) are suffering because of the present delimitation, which is based on the 2001 census, and their communities are not getting proper representation. The delimitation that has been adopted now does not equally distribute voters among different wards. There is a need to provide reservation matrix based on the 2011 census, the government pleaded before the apex court.