Padmavathi is B’luru mayor, Anand deputy
Bengaluru: September 29, 2016, DHNS: Congress corporator G Padmavathi was elected the new mayor of Bengaluru amid din in the BBMP Council on Wednesday. She is the 50th mayor of the city and the seventh woman to assume the coveted post. Padmavathi, a four-time corporator, represents the Prakash Nagar Ward in the Rajajinagar Assembly segment.
JD(S) corporator M Anand was elected unopposed as the deputy mayor after the BJP withdrew its candidate Gurumurthy Reddy, who represents the Radhakrishna Temple Ward in the Hebbal Assembly constituency. Padmavathi secured 142 votes and defeated the BJP’s D H Lakshmi (Ganesh Mandir Ward) by 22 votes. The BJP nominee secured 120 votes.
Aware of the defeat, Union ministers H N Ananth Kumar, D V Sadananda Gowda and Nirmala Sitharaman, in their capacity as BJP members of Parliament, did not turn up to vote, while two other MPs P C Mohan and Rajeev Chandrasekhar were denied the voting rights for arriving late.
This irked the BJP members who created a ruckus in the council. Regional Commissioner M V Jayanthi, who conducted the election, said the two members were not present when the attendance was taken and hence, they were denied the voting rights. She also cited various sections of the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act to justify her decision. The denial led to a commotion, which lasted for almost half an hour with the BJP demanding that they be allowed to vote. There were heated arguments between the Congress and BJP members over the issue. Amid the uproar, Jayanthi announced Padmavathi as the winner.
When the process to elect the deputy mayor started, the BJP again demanded that Chandrasekhar and Mohan be allowed to vote, which the presiding officer denied. The BJP members then staged a walkout along with their deputy mayor candidate Gurumurthy. Thus, JD(S) corporator Anand was elected unopposed with 142 votes.