BENGALURU: In the BBMP council where 102 of the 198 corporators are women, two of them are set to take over the posts of both Mayor and Deputy Mayor for the very first time.
Keen on having their own as the mayor and JD(S)’ corporator as the Deputy Mayor, the Congress finalised the name of 39-year-old Gangambika Mallikarjun, a second-time corporator from Jayanagar ward in Chickpet Assembly Constituency as its mayoral candidate. While the Congress-JD(S) combine has the numbers to get Gangambika elected as the 52nd mayor of Bengaluru, the BJP is hoping to spring a last-minute surprise.
The JD(S) is likely to field Ramila Umashankar for the deputy mayor’s post. “It will be decided by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and our party president H D Deve Gowda. We will get to know only on Friday morning,’’ party MLA Gopalaiah said. Sources said Ramila stands a good chance as her name had come up last year too but missed at the last minute.
Hectic activity was witnessed in Congress and BJP camps on Thursday. While Congress concentrated on keeping its numbers intact, BJP was successful in pulling two independents to its side. With this, the party hopes to pull off some last-minute surprise and dent Congress’s prospects. The BJP, despite not having the numbers, has decided to field candidates making it clear that it intends to put up a fight. “We do not have the magic number of 130, but we are taking a chance to see if any last-minute confusion among Congress leaders can work in our favour” said a BJP leader.
Congress is confident of Gangambika, a Lingayat heavily backed by senior Congress leaders and former ministers Ramalinga Reddy and Shamanuru Shivashankarappa, winning. While Reddy batted for his loyalist, Shivashankarappa pushed for a person hailing from the Lingayat community for the top post. Many Lingayat mutt seers had also publicly backed Gangambika.
“The Palike has not seen a Lingayat woman representation so far. The separate religion row had divided the community last year and making a Lingayat the mayor can help bridge the gap. Lingayat votes matter if we intend to break BJP’s streak in Bengaluru for Lok Sabha polls,” said a senior Congress leader.
While it is yet to make a name offical, BJP said it will field a candidate. Front-runners include Prabhavathi Ramesh of Puttenahalli ward, Madhukumari Vageesh from Marenahalli ward and Shobha Anjinappa of Padmanabhanagar.
Congress chose its candidate after holding a series of meetings on the BBMP election on Thursday. Senior party leaders met legislative party leader Siddaramaiah on Thursday morning at his residence to arrive at a consensus. This was followed up with a meeting of senior leaders and independent corporators at a private hotel. “Our candidate will be the mayor and JD(S) corporator will be the deputy mayor. There will be no change in it despite all the attempts that the BJP is making,” said KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao.
Congress had only five of the seven independent corporators at the hotel and alleged that BJP had forcefully taken away the other two corporators. Later, Congress leaders met legislators to finalise the name of the party’s candidate.
Sources who were present at the meeting suggest that it was a chaotic affair. Many MLAs including N A Haris of Shantinagar was miffed when the candidate he was backing — Soumya Shivakumar, a corporator from Shantinagar — was overlooked to accommodate Reddy’s candidate. Haris, who missed a cabinet berth, had lobbied for the Vokkaliga community corporator who was also being backed by Minister D K Shivakumar.