The Hindu : Front Page : Stalemate continues in Palakkad council

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 25, 2005

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Front Page

Stalemate continues in Palakkad council

Staff Reporter

No candidate for the post of chairman

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PALAKKAD: For the second time, there was no candidate for the post of chairman of Palakkad Municipality when the council met exclusively to elect a new chairman on Monday.

The situation was the same when a special meeting was convened for the purpose on October 6.

Meanwhile, both the LDF and the UDF said that they would welcome fresh elections, if ordered by the Election Commission, as the present council failed to run the administration of the municipality.

At the meeting on Monday, all the 50 councillors were present and they signed the register. But nobody came forward when returning officer A. Mohanan Pillai asked for nominations from the five Scheduled Caste councillors.

The chairmanship is reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate. The BJP, the largest party with 17 members, has no eligible candidate to contest for the chairmanship.

Though both the UDF and the LDF together have five councillors in this category, they did not come forward to contest for the post.

The returning officer ended the proceedings in half-an-hour and said that he would report to the State Election Commission that "no candidate came forward to contest for the post for the second time on Monday though all the 50 councillors were present and signed the attendance register."

The returning officer said that "municipal council was a party-less body and it was unfortunate that none of the five Scheduled Caste members came forward to contest for the post."

The returning officer called the police when there was slogan shouting from the visitors' gallery. Later, he had to remove all visitors from the gallery with the help of the police for the peaceful conduct of the election.

Leader of the LDF in the council A. K. Chandrankutty said that his front did not field a candidate as it did not want to run the council with the support of the BJP or the UDF.

Congress leader K. Sudhakaran, in charge of party affairs in the district, said his party did not contest the election because it did not want to run the council with the support of the CPI(M) or the BJP.

BJP district secretary and councillor K. Sivarajan said the BJP would oppose any move to dissolve the council. Both the UDF and the LDF joined hands to deny the BJP the chance to rule the municipality.

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