The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Lobbying for standing panel membership begins

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Dec 01, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Lobbying for standing panel membership begins

By Afshan Yasmeen

BANGALORE, NOV. 30. After the mayoral election, hectic lobbying is on by corporators to grab plum posts in the standing committees of the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) Council.

But senior Congress leaders are determined to accommodate only members who have never been in the forefront so far.

The election of 56 members to the eight standing committees in the council, which was earlier scheduled to be held along with the mayoral election on Monday, was postponed to Saturday as the leaders were unable to decide on the members. "There is a lot of pressure on us from all sides in selecting the members. We will meet on Thursday to decide. We are also trying to convince members to accept the posts allotted to them without cribbing," Congress sources told The Hindu on Tuesday.

Guidelines

The sources said the guidelines, on the basis of which members and chairpersons of the committees would be chosen, were being framed.

This time, the leaders also have to accommodate the 10 nominated members in the committees. The number of nominated members was increased from five to 10 last year.

The Bangalore City District Congress Committee (BCDCC) President, Ramalinga Reddy, who is also the Jayanagar MLA, said the members and chairpersons of the four important committees of Works, Town Planning and Development, Taxation and Finance, and Appeals might not be nominated to any other committees this year.

He said the former mayors, deputy mayors, ruling party leaders and chairpersons of all the eight committees in the past three years would be considered only after the others were accommodated.

"Our aim is to give a chance to all the 59 Congress corporators to play the role of leader in their five-year tenure, and almost all of them have got a chance. We still have eight members who have not got a position so far. Members who have been quite active in the Youth Congress will be considered for the posts of chairpersons," he said.

Of the 59 Congress corporators, two — N.L. Narendra Babu and K. Chandrashekar — have been elected MLAs. Besides the 10 nominated members, the council has 20 members from the Janata Dal (Secular), 17 from the Bharatiya Janata Party and three from the Janata Dal (United). The Chamarajpet corporator, Kokila Chandrashekar, was expelled from the Congress last year and is an independent. Though the Congress is the ruling party in the council, it shares the committee memberships with the Opposition.

Post for corporator

Though the names for the plum posts are yet to be short-listed, sources said, the Shivajinagar corporator, Mumtaz Begum, who narrowly missed being nominated to the top post, is likely to head an important committee this time.

Elections to the members of the Taxation and Finance (T and F) committee will be taken up first.

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