The decks may have been cleared for the election of the city’s 47th Mayor, but the four-month delay in holding the elections will cut short the term of the 48th Mayor in this council. The term of the present council will come to an end on April 25, 2015, and the 48th Mayor and 49th Deputy Mayor will hold those posts only for nine months.
While the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act 1976 sets the term of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor for one year from the date of election, the Mayor in the last year of the council’s five-year term will technically have about nine months to serve due to the delay this year.
The post of the last Mayor in this council has been reserved for the General (woman) category and woman councillors, and those aspiring for that post, are a disgruntled lot because of the short tenure.
According to sources in the ruling BJP, the contenders for the top post are Moodalapalya councillor Shantha Kumari, Vijnanapura councillor Geetha Vivekananda and Domlur councillor Geetha Srinivas Reddy. Ms. Vivekananda told The Hindu it was unfair for the reservation to be changed in the last minute. She said the 47th Mayor’s post was reserved for General (woman) category. “However, none of us know why it was changed. It could not be reversed as the code of conduct for the Assembly elections were announced by then,” she said. She also said there was no option to extend the term of the 48th Mayor, as it will mean that the term of the entire council would also have to be extended.
Meanwhile, hectic lobbying has begun in the BJP for the Mayor’s post this year. Senior councillors B.S. Sathyanarayana, C.K. Ramamurthy, B.R. Nanjundappa and Gangabyraiah have put their hats into the ring already. However, there is no confusion in who will be the next Deputy Mayor, which is reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (Woman) category, as there is only one councillor — Indira from Byatarayanapura ward — who belongs to that category.
