VIJAYAWADA: The next city mayor is likely to be a woman from the Backward Classes (BC) category. Also, women and BCs are likely to have a strong representation in the next Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) council.
According to the voter list submitted by the civic body officials to the Election Commission, the city with three Assembly constituencies has 7,78, 069 voters. Out of the total voters, 3,84,441 are men, 3,93,504 are women and 124 of the third gender. Women voters are 9,063 more than the men.
The civic body had prepared a gazette notification for the reservation wards and put it up at three administrative circle offices in the city as part of preparation for the municipal elections likely to be held in September.
According to VMC officials, of the total 7.78 lakh voters, 3.19 lakh are from BC category, 78,814 are SC, 7,835 are ST and 3.71 lakh are general. A senior VMC official said that the post of mayor will be reserved for BCs and is likely to be awarded to a BC woman as their population is 4,507 more than men. In 2005 and 2014, the mayor post was awarded to people from the general category.