The Hindu : Four councillors join Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 16, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka

Four councillors join Congress

By Our Staff Correspondent

BIJAPUR JULY 15. Four independent councillors have joined the Congress, taking the party's strength in the 34-member Bijapur City Municipal Council (CMC) to 25.

Vyasaray Diwanji, Savitribayi Gadagi, Arati Rajput, and Hema Devar joined the Congress today, expressing their faith in the leadership of the CMC President, Gulappa Shetgar, whose resignation is yet to be accepted.

Today's development comes a day after two independent councillors, Anwar Jamadar and Arjun Rathod, joined the party.

Mr. Jamadar, Vice-President, against whom a no-confidence motion was moved, tendered his resignation on Monday and joined the Congress. With this, today's meeting, which was convened to discuss the no-confidence motion, ended in a few minutes. The meeting, chaired by Mr. Shetgar, condoled the death of the Hungund MLA and former minister, S.R. Kashappanavar. Only 14 councillors and four nominated members were present. Mr. Jamadar and other members belonging to the group led by the former MP and AICC member, M.B. Patil, were conspicuous by their absence.

The General Secretary of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC), P.M. Ashok, who arrived in Bijapur on Monday as the party's observer on the eve of the scheduled no-confidence motion against Mr. Jamadar, had said that whoever enjoyed the confidence of the party councillors would be made the president and the vice-president, which apparently led to horse-trading.

The four independent councillors who joined the Congress today are learnt to belong to the Shetgar camp. Ironically, they were among the 27 members who had demanded Mr. Shetgar's resignation two weeks ago, which forced him to quit. Of the 19 members of the Congress in the CMC, 12 opposed the continuance of Mr. Shetgar. However, two of them have switched their loyalties. Of the seven independents, six have now joined the Congress.

Both the groups — one led by Mr. Shetgar and the other by M.B. Patil — have approached the seventh independent member, Yasmin Karajagi, to enlist her support. Sources said that efforts were on to rope in a few councillors from the eight-member BJP group.

As of today, the strength of the Congress in the CMC is 26, including the local MLA who has a vote. This makes it mandatory that aspirants should enlist the support of at least 14 councillors to bag the post.

The group opposed to Mr. Shetgar has demanded that only the opinion of those councillors who won on the party ticket be considered.

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