KOCHI: The Congress suffered a setback on Tuesday when they lost the election for the chairman post of the Education and Sports Standing Committee of Kochi Municipal Corporation.
The CPM candidate, V A Sreejith, beat Congress’ Bastine Babu by four votes to three. The CPM and Congress have four members in the nine-member committee, and BJP, has one. It was thought the voting would end in a tie with four votes each.
However, the vote of UDF councillor Sheeba Durom was declared invalid, and Sreejith won. Sheeba’s vote was declared invalid after she failed to write her name and signature on the slip. Subsequently, she was suspended from Congress for voting against the party whip.
In an official letter to the councillor, DCC president Mohammed Shiyas said, “You [Sheeba] were given the party whip to cast a vote in favour of Bastin. However, the vote was invalidated due to negligence.”
Meanwhile, Kochi Mayor M Anilkumar, in his Facebook post, congratulated the comeback of Sreejith as chairman of the Education and Sports Standing Committee and said that he had initiated various development projects for students and youths.
The Congress had brought a non-confidence motion against Sreejith, which was passed after four UDF councillors and the lone BJP member voted in support.