30 chairmen, deputies to make way for women candidates
Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Youth Congress president, had held a meeting with the KMC councillors and discussed the road map for the ensuing civic elections
Kolkata: Thirty chairmen and vice chairmen of different municipalities will have to forego their wards from where they were elected in the civic polls five years ago after the areas have fallen under the reservation announced by the State Election Commission.
Following the reservation policy of the State Election Commission, these wards will be represented by women candidates in the forthcoming civic elections.
The ward from where Jitendra Tewari, mayor of Asansol Municipal Corporation was elected will have a woman candidate. Similarly, Dulal Das, chairman of Maheshtala Municipality, Dilip Yadav of Uttarpara Municipality and Shankar Adhya of Bongaon Municipality will have to forgo of their seats. Political experts said they might be accommodated from some other ward.
It may be mentioned that four members, mayor in council of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) will have to forgo their seats due to reservation. These MIC members are Ratan Dey (roads), Debabrata Majumdar (solid waste management), Baisanar Chattopadhyay (housing) and Swapan Samaddar (bustee development). Two borough committee chairmen, Susanta Ghosh (borough XII) and Indrajit Dasgupta (borough XVI) will have to forgo their wards.
According to the draft list of the state Election Commission, eight out of 144 wards of the KMC has come under the SC reservation and three of these have been reserved for SC women. Forty-Five wards have been reserved for general women. Wards 33, 58, 78, 107, 110, 127, 141 and 142 have come under SC reservation out of which 33, 78 and 127 have gone to SC women.
The draft reservation list for 93 urban local bodies in Bengal including KMC was released by the commission on Friday. The reservation in civic
polls had started from the year 2009.
The other KMC councillors who will not be able to contest from their respective wards are Pabitra Biswas of ward 33 in Beleghata, Nezamuddin Shams from ward 78 in Mominpore, Arup Chakraborty from ward 110 in Baghajatin, Sandipan Saha from ward 52 under New Market police station, Arun Kumar Das from ward 55 in Entally, Subrata Ghosh from ward 87 in Rashbehari, Tarun Mondal from ward 105 in Kasba and Debasish Mukherjee from ward 99 in Naktala. Mukherjee is the only Left councillor and all others are Trinamool Congress councillors.
Moreover, efficiency and image have become the two most important factors in getting tickets for the civic elections in 2020. Poll strategist Prashant Kishor and Abhishek Banerjee, Trinamool Youth Congress president had held a meeting with the KMC councillors and discussed the road map for the ensuing civic elections. Members of Kishor's team are visiting different areas to take feedback from local people about the respective councillors.
