Repeated postponement of civic body elections undermines the spirit of the 74th Constitutional Amendment. Critically analyse with reference to recent Supreme Court interventions in Karnataka.

Article 243U mandates that elections to a municipality be completed before the expiry of its five-year term, or within six months of dissolution [1]. Bengaluru — governed without an elected council since the BBMP's term lapsed in 2020 — shows how routine postponement converts a mandatory constitutional timeline into an administrative convenience.

How postponement undermines the 74th Amendment

• Constitutional violation: the six-year gap in Bengaluru far exceeds the outer limit fixed by Article 243U, defeating the Amendment's core purpose of making elections non-discretionary [1].
• Administrator raj: prolonged rule by state-appointed commissioners shifts executive power from the elected Mayor to the bureaucracy — the very concentration PRS flagged in the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024, where the Chief Minister heads both the GBA and the Metropolitan Planning Committee [2].
• Accountability deficit: ward-level grievance redress on waste, flooding and roads loses its elected interlocutor; the 2nd ARC's Local Governance report warned that such hollowing-out weakens local democracy [4].
• Fiscal-functional dilution: without elected councils, devolution of the 12th Schedule functions remains on paper.

The other side — genuine constraints

• Restructuring: splitting BBMP into five corporations required fresh ward delimitation and reservation rosters (369 wards), work that legitimately precedes polls [2].
• Overlapping machinery: the same staff were absorbed in the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of Karnataka's rolls; polls on stale rolls would themselves be contestable [3].
• Yet these are foreseeable, recurring tasks — not force majeure. The Supreme Court accordingly termed earlier pleas "delaying tactics", granted a "last opportunity", and while extending the deadline to 31 December 2026, warned that no further excuses would be entertained [3].

Judicial firmness is a corrective, not a substitute. The durable fix lies in binding State Election Commissions to notify polls suo motu, insulating delimitation from political timing, and sequencing roll-revision with poll calendars — so that local self-government rests on constitutional obligation rather than court supervision.