The 2026 Greater Bengaluru Authority elections are scheduled to be held by 31 December 2026 across the area of the five newly established City Corporations under the apex body Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) in Bengaluru. Bengaluru is the largest city in South India, the capital of Karnataka and the third-most populous city in India, with a population of 8,443,675 as per the 2011 census. These will be the first polls to the newly formed corporations. Bengaluru has had no elected city council since the previous BBMP council's term lapsed in September 2020, and voters last went to the polls for city government in the 2015 BBMP election, more than eleven years ago.
Background Reorganisation of Bengaluru The Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 (GBG Act) is a Karnataka state law that replaced the erstwhile Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) governance structure with a new city governance system centred around the Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA). The Act came into force in 2025 and represents the biggest restructuring of Bengaluru's urban administration since the creation of BBMP in 2007. The Act effectively dissolved the BBMP structure and replaced it with an apex authority presiding over five city Corporations, each governing various parts of Bengaluru.
The implementation of the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 required a comprehensive redrawing of Bengaluru's city ward boundaries. The earlier BBMP structure consisted of 198 wards, though several proposals between 2020 and 2024 had suggested expanding the number of wards to improve representation and administrative efficiency, including a 225-ward structure proposed by the previous Bommai Administration, which was passed via the BBMP Act, 2020 but was not implemented due to the change in state administration following the 2023 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election and the eventual scrapping of BBMP by the Siddaramaiah Administration. Following the abolition of the BBMP and the creation of five city corporations under the GBA, the Karnataka government initiated a fresh delimitation exercise in 2025. Under the new system, the earlier 198 BBMP wards were expanded to 368 wards distributed across the five city corporations; one ward was subsequently added to BWCC, taking the total to 369.
+ Statistics of the five Bengaluru city corporations City CorporationEmblemsSeat of Government AbbreviationArea No. of WardsPolling StationsRegistered VotersMenWomenOthersTotal Bengaluru Central City CorporationHudson Circle BCCC 631,3037,26,4456,98,92830314,25,676 Bengaluru North City CorporationYelahanka BNCC 721,7069,94,3199,59,57238119,54,272 Bengaluru South City CorporationJayanagar BSCC 721,6149,03,3488,41,04022317,44,611 Bengaluru East City CorporationMahadevapura BECC 509195,49,1704,91,96825810,41,396 Bengaluru West City CorporationRajarajeshwari Nagar BWCC 1122,48213,96,47013,29,63546827,26,573 Greater Bengaluru AuthorityHudson CircleGBA 3698,02445,69,75243,21,1431,63388,92,528
State Election Commission and court orders The conduct of elections to the five city corporations falls under the jurisdiction of the Karnataka State Election Commission (KSEC). Following the dissolution of the BBMP council in 2020 and the subsequent legislative and administrative delays in forming the GBA, Bengaluru went without elected local representation for an extended period. Multiple public interest litigations were filed before the Supreme Court of India seeking the expeditious conduct of elections. The Supreme Court, monitoring the matter closely, set successive deadlines for the completion of the electoral process. In January 2026, the Court set an initial deadline of 30 June 2026 to complete the elections. In May 2026, the Supreme Court extended the deadline for the GBA civic polls to 31 August 2026, rejecting the Karnataka government's request to push the deadline to September, and stated at the time that this would be the final extension granted.
Despite that warning, the Supreme Court granted a further extension in July 2026. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana extended the deadline for completing the GBA elections to 31 December 2026, after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the Karnataka government, submitted that the state's ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls would not conclude until November 2026 and that conducting the SIR and the civic polls simultaneously was administratively unworkable. The bench again cautioned that no further extension would be granted under any circumstances, marking the third deadline set by the Court for the long-delayed civic polls since the previous BBMP council's term lapsed in September 2020.
Ward reservations Wards in the five city corporations are reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Backward Class "A" and Backward Class "B" candidates, with seats reserved for women within each category, under Section 29 of the Greater Bengaluru Governance Act, 2024 and the guidelines in Government Order UDD 240 BBS 2025 dated 19 December 2025, on the basis of the 2011 census. Draft reservations were notified on 8 January 2026 and objections were invited until 23 January 2026. A review committee chaired by the Additional Chief Secretary, Urban Development Department, examined them on 17 February 2026, and the final ward-wise reservation for all five corporations was notified on 7 March 2026. Of the 369 wards, 43 are reserved for SC, 7 for ST, 97 for Backward Class "A", 24 for Backward Class "B" and 198 are in the general category, with 176 seats reserved for women across categories.
+ Ward reservations across the five Bengaluru city corporations City Corporation Total wards SC ST Backward Class "A" Backward Class "B" General Women (all categories) Bengaluru Central City Corporation 63 11 (5) 1 (–) 15 (7) 4 (2) 32 (16) 30 Bengaluru North City Corporation 72 9 (4) 2 (1) 19 (9) 5 (2) 37 (18) 34 Bengaluru South City Corporation 72 7 (3) 1 (–) 19 (9) 5 (2) 40 (20) 34 Bengaluru East City Corporation 50 7 (3) 1 (–) 14 (7) 3 (1) 25 (12) 23 Bengaluru West City Corporation 112 9 (4) 2 (1) 30 (15) 7 (3) 64 (32) 55 Greater Bengaluru Authority 369 43 (19) 7 (2) 97 (47) 24 (10) 198 (98) 176 Figures in brackets are seats reserved for women within that category; the final column is the total of those seats.
Political alliances On 5 October 2026, former Chief Minister B. S. Yediyurappa announced in Kalaburagi that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Janata Dal (Secular) (JD(S)) would contest all upcoming elections in Karnataka together under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) banner, saying that leaders of both parties had agreed to sustain the alliance. He said that NDA candidates would be fielded in the polls.
As a result, the BJP and JD(S) will field common NDA candidates, rather than separate candidates against each other, in the elections to the five city corporations. The announcement was reported as signalling a renewed understanding ahead of the 2028 Karnataka Legislative Assembly election; the alliance's first test was described as the 23 October 2026 elections to four Karnataka Legislative Council constituencies.
Asked who would be chief minister if the alliance came to power, Yediyurappa said that facing the election was the first priority for both parties and that BJP state president B. Y. Vijayendra had already clarified the position on the alliance's leadership.
2026 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls Concurrent with the run-up to the GBA polls, the Election Commission of India (ECI) launched the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) 2026 of electoral rolls across Karnataka from 30 June 2026, as part of a nationwide, phased exercise covering 16 states and three Union Territories. The exercise involves Booth Level Officers (BLOs) conducting house-to-house verification of every registered elector, covering more than 5.5 crore voters statewide.
The original schedule envisaged enumeration running until 29 July 2026, with a draft roll on 5 August and a final roll by 7 October 2026. This timeline was subsequently revised by the ECI. The draft electoral roll was published on 24 August 2026. Claims and objections were open from 24 August to 23 September 2026, with a separate notice, verification and disposal phase running until 22 October, and the final electoral roll is scheduled for publication on 27 October 2026. This revised timeline falls within the Supreme Court's extended 31 December 2026 deadline for completing the GBA civic polls.
Process A central element of SIR 2026 is progeny mapping, under which every current elector's 2025 electoral roll entry is cross-checked against the last intensive revision, conducted in 2002–2003, to identify duplicate or "ghost" entries; electors who cannot locate their own 2002 record are required to submit the corresponding details of a parent or grandparent instead. The exercise particularly targets the removal of deceased voters and duplicate names, including citizens who have migrated and remain registered as voters in more than one location. Newly eligible electors register using Form 6, corrections to existing entries (including a change of address within the same constituency) are made using Form 8, and objections to entries or requests for deletion are filed using Form 7; no supporting documents are collected during the initial enumeration phase itself. Electors whose earlier roll details could not be mapped, or contained a logical discrepancy, are issued notices and must appear for a hearing before the electoral registration officer, who can reschedule a missed hearing once; a name cannot be removed without notice, a hearing and a reasoned order.
Urban impact Reporting on the ground-level conduct of SIR in Karnataka has identified overburdened BLOs, outdated records, and the verification of migrant populations as recurring challenges, particularly in high-mobility urban areas. When the draft roll was published on 24 August 2026, it contained 4.46 crore electors against 5.54 crore on the roll of 16 June; about 1.07 crore entries (19.48%) were placed in the "absent, shifted, dead, duplicate and others" (ASDDO) category and left out of the draft, and 43.81 lakh electors were to be sent notices. In the Greater Bengaluru Authority area, 46.88 lakh electors (about 45.13% of the 1.04 crore recorded on 16 June) were classified under the ASDDO categories; the proportion was highest in the Bommanahalli Assembly constituency (54.83%) and lowest in Yelahanka (36.02%). Electors left out of the draft could seek inclusion by filing Form 6.
Political reactions The conduct of the exercise in Karnataka drew criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Janata Dal (Secular). On 6 July 2026, a joint BJP–JD(S) delegation — including Union minister and JD(S) leader H. D. Kumaraswamy and Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly R. Ashoka — submitted a complaint to Chief Electoral Officer V. Anbukumar, alleging that BLOs were bypassing mandatory door-to-door verification and instead filling enumeration forms at community halls, places of worship, and BLO residences, and sought an inquiry and fresh verification. Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar rejected the allegations and denied government interference in the process, while KPCC president B. K. Hariprasad defended the use of public venues for form-filling as permitted under ECI guidelines and separately alleged attempts by BJP Booth Level Agents to influence voters. Separately, JD(S) Youth Wing state president Nikhil Kumaraswamy alleged procedural violations in the Ramanagara Assembly constituency, and BJP leader C. T. Ravi alleged that voters in Chikkamagaluru Assembly constituency had been adversely affected.
On 5 October 2026, the BJP and JD(S) announced that they would contest upcoming elections jointly under the NDA (see #Political alliances).