Kolkata: Krishna Chakraborty became the new Mayor of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Saturday.
The councillors in the meeting held on Saturday afternoon unanimously proposed her name. State ministers including Subrata Mukherjee, Purnendu Basu, Bratya Basu, Jyotipriya Mallick and Sujit Basu were present at the swearing-in ceremony. Earlier, Chakraborty was the Chairperson of BMC. She was the councillor of Bidhannagar Municipality before the BMC was formed in October 2015.
After resuming the office of the Mayor, Chakraborty said her priority will be to implement Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's projects — 'Save Green, Stay Clean' and 'Save Water, Save Life'. "We will give special emphasis on water conservation and campaign will be launched to create awareness on the issue," she said.
The new Mayor further added that special garbage cleaning drives will be held regularly.
The Chief Minister has instructed all the civic bodies to take steps to prevent the outbreak of dengue. Chakraborty said anti-larvae drives which are being carried out by BMC will be strengthened. She sought the cooperation of all the councillors and said: "We should work together to fulfill the dreams of Mamata Banerjee in giving better services to the people of Salt Lake and Rajarhat."
Jyotipriya Mallick, the state Food minister and president of North 24-Parganas, maintained: "She has vast experience in running the civic body. Some lapses in administering it had been noticed and it is expected that Krishna Chakraborty will iron them out."
The problem in BMC cropped up after the councillors wrote a letter to the Chairperson expressing their no-confidence in the then Mayor Sabyasachi Dutta who was in the eye of a political storm after he participated in an agitation against the state Power department and slammed the TMC government for not fulfilling the employees' demands for increasing their salaries.
He also drew a lot of flak over his meetings with senior BJP leader Mukul Roy.
Challenging the procedure, Dutta filed a case with the Calcutta High Court. The High Court ordered discussion on the no-confidence motion brought by the councillors. But before the discussion was held, Dutta resigned.
Mamata Banerjee had held a meeting with Krishna Chakraborty in which deputy Mayor Tapas Chatterjee and Debashis Jana, member, Mayor-in-Council were also present.
Firhad Hakim, the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister was also present during the meeting which was held at Nabanna. Later, the Trinamool Congress held a meeting and suggested Chakraborty's name.
There are 41 wards in BMC. This includes Salt Lake and areas off VIP Road which include Teghoria, Raghunathpur, Jyangra, Hatiara, Chinar Park and Kaikhali among others.