New Delhi/Bengaluru: Hours after taking charge as the national president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Nitin Nabin appointed Ram Madhav, the former BJP general secretary, as the poll in charge for the Greater Bengaluru Municipal polls.
Madhav will be assisted by former Rajasthan BJP chief Satish Poonia and Maharashtra MLA Sanjay Upadhyaya, who have been assigned co-in charges.
Madhav thanked Nabin for the new responsibility in a post on X.
“Grateful to him for assigning me the responsibility of Bruhad Bengaluru Mahanagar Palika (BBMP) elections scheduled for May 2026. Local body elections are fought and won purely on local agendas and the strength and hard work of the local karyakartas. Together with two other senior colleagues, we shall strive utmost to help Team Karnataka in winning the prestigious election,” Madhav wrote.
“BBMP is very prestigious because it is a conglomerate of 5 corporations that include several towns and more than 120 villages besides the city of Bengaluru. With an electorate of over 9 million and 369 corporation wards, it is no less than an assembly battle for the state. Look forward to meeting with all stakeholders in Bengaluru – state leadership, local MPs n MLAs and most importantly the city leadership and karyakartas so,” he added.
Congratulations to @NitinNabin Sh Nitin Nabin ji for assuming the onerous and prestigious responsibility of the National President of the BJP.
Grateful to him for assigning me the responsibility of Bruhad Bengaluru Mahanagar Palika (BBMP) elections scheduled for May 2026. Local… pic.twitter.com/cziWu0mR39— Ram Madhav (@rammadhav_) January 21, 2026
Madhav was a BJP general secretary till 2020, when the new party president, J.P. Nadda, reconstituted his team.
He was shifted back to the RSS in 2020, but signs of his return to active politics became apparent when he was named the party’s election in-charge for the 2024 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly polls.
The new task points to an expanded role for him within the BJP and suggests approval from the RSS, a party leader explained.
“The BJP does exceptionally well in Bengaluru. There are 28 assembly seats here, and despite its poor performance in other parts of the state, it won 16 in Bengaluru and the Congress won 12,” said a senior BJP leader.
“In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP won all four seats in Bengaluru. The BJP has held power in Bengaluru irrespective of whichever government has been in power; so these elections assume greater significance,” the leader added.
Madhav is often seen as a key strategist behind the BJP’s ascension in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir.
In the 2024 J&K Assembly elections, after the removal of Article 370, the BJP emerged as the second-largest party in the state, winning 29 constituencies and improving its all-time high tally of 25 seats in the 2014 elections. The party also retained its dominance in Jammu region.
Madhav has also been at the forefront of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s outreach to the Indian diaspora.
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Why Bengaluru matters
Assigning the RSS veteran the responsibility of the Greater Bengaluru Municipal polls emphasises the importance the party attaches to these elections.
In November last year, the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) replaced the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), effectively breaking Bengaluru from one single corporation into five bodies for better management and streamlining services.
The change gives the GBA room to expand the boundaries of the city corporation from around 800 sq km to almost 1,400 sq km, and includes localities, towns and villages in the outer periphery of the city.
If the BJP wins the elections, it could also put an end to the Congress’s constant attacks on alleged tampering and technical issues with electronic voting machines (EVMs).
The ‘vote-chori’ allegations started in Bengaluru with Mahadevapura, an area that has also seen a crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, who are often engaged as sanitation workers there.
The BJP has a significant presence in Karnataka, which it considers the gateway to the South. The state is also an adopted home to a significant number of migrants from other south Indian states, two of which are heading to the polls later this year.
There are over 88.41 lakh voters in the five newly created corporations across Bengaluru. The new GBA had 369 wards, compared with 198 wards in the single corporation earlier. The draft list of voters has 45,69,193 men, 43,20,583 women and 1,635 others.
The state election commission has given the green signal for ballot-paper-based elections in the GBA, zila panchayat and taluk panchayat.
Bengaluru corporation elections have not been held since September 2020 and ZP/TP elections have been pending since mid-2021.
Bengaluru, the crown jewel of Karnataka, contributes almost half of Karnataka’s GSDP and is home to almost a quarter of the state’s nearly 7 crore population. The capital accounts for a majority of the country’s IT exports but has recently been in the news for all the wrong reasons, including crumbling infrastructure, road accidents caused by potholes, and incomplete and long-delayed mass transit public infrastructure.
D.K. Shivakumar, the deputy chief minister of Karnataka, also holds the Bengaluru development portfolio. He has proposed ambitious projects like the Rs 40,000 crore tunnel road, a sky deck and a double-decker flyover, seeking Rs 1 lakh crore from the Union government to fund these projects.
However, the Congress has not held power in Bengaluru during the last two terms of the BBMP council (2010-2015 and 2015-2020). BBMP has not had elected representatives since September 2020, leaving most powers with successive state governments and officials, fuelling allegations of corruption and apathy.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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