Elections to the posts of president and vice-president of the Hassan Zilla Panchayat, scheduled for Thursday, were postponed to May 16 due to lack of quorum. All 23 members of the Janata Dal (Secular) chose to skip the voting process, prompting the Returning Officer to postpone the election.
Leaders of JD(S) had opposed the reservation allotted to the posts in ZP. Following the direction of the party’s senior leaders, the members chose to remain absent, though the party candidates had filed nomination papers earlier in the day.
The post of president is reserved for Scheduled Tribe (Woman), while the vice-president’s post is unreserved (general category). Though JD(S) is the single largest party, it has no members belonging to the Scheduled Tribe (Woman).
Shwetha Devaraj of the Congress and S. Vatsala, Lokesh and Latha Manjeshwari, all from the JD(S), had filed nomination papers for the president’s post. The JD(S) had chosen Scheduled Caste candidates to file the nomination papers. For the vice-president’s post J.D.Chandrashekhar of the Congress and H.P. Srinivas of the JD(S) had filed the papers.
M.A. Kunjappa, returning officer, postponed the elections citing lack of quorum. In the 40-member ZP, the JD(S) has won 23 seats, the Congress 16 and BJP secured one seat.
