Even though the ruling BJP in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council is yet to announce its mayoral candidate, four-time councillor B.S. Sathyanarayana from Basavanagudi is in all likelihood set to don the role.
The election to the post of mayor and deputy mayor will be held on Wednesday. The Mayor’s post has been reserved for the general category, while the Deputy Mayor’s post, as per the High Court’s direction, has been reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (woman) category.
According to sources in the BJP, the party leadership, that had already held one round of discussions with the city MLAs, sought opinion from all the 112 BJP councillors on Tuesday. Sources confirmed that more than 90 per cent of the councillors had extended their support to Mr. Sathyanarayana, senior-most councillor in the BBMP council.
However, the party’s decision has not been welcomed by all. A disgruntled councillor told The Hindu on condition of anonymity that the party leadership had already made the decision and only sought the councillors’ opinion for namesake. “Over the past three years, the councillors were not consulted at all. Even this time, they wanted to make a show of it and thus, called the councillors for a meeting,” he remarked bitterly.
Sources confirmed that only the election of Mayor and Deputy Mayor will be held on Wednesday. The party will take a call on who will be the next Ruling Party Leader after the election to the 12 standing committees.
There is no confusion over who will be the next Deputy Mayor, as there is only one woman councillor from the Congress who belongs to Scheduled Tribes category. The post will go to Indira from Byatarayanapura ward.
Meanwhile, rumours were rife that R.R. Nagar MLA and Yeshwanthpur councillor Munirathna from the Congress would file his nomination papers for the mayor’s post. However, the Congress leadership did not confirm this. Dinesh Gundu Rao, who heads the party’s city unit, told The Hindu that the situation did not warrant any Congress councillor to contest for the mayor’s post. Mr. Munirathna was not available for comment.
