BENGALURU: Although it was a tightrope walk until Friday morning for Moodalapalya ward corporator Shanta Kumari and Kamakshipalya corporator K. Ranganna, finally it turned out to be a cakewalk for both of them when they bagged the post of the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor on Friday. MLC and BJP senior leader V. Somanna played a crucial role in retaining the Mayor’s post in his constituency for his loyalist Shanta Kumari. Union minister H. N. Ananth Kumar had to intervene to finalise the mayoral candidates. Rajajinagar MLA Suresh Kumar succeeded in getting the deputy mayor’s post to his constituency by backing K. Ranganna who was also supported by MP P. C. Mohan.
The election process was initiated at 1.20 pm by Regional Commissioner Gourav Gupta. Since it was unopposed he declared Shanta Kumari the 48th Mayor and K. Ranganna 49th Deputy Mayor respectively on Friday. Meanwhile, Kacharakanahalli corporator Padmanabha Reddy alleged that the election procedure was violated as the members of the planning committee were not elected and the Regional Commissioner was a puppet in the hands of the ruling Congress government. Congress corporators said it was a mayoral poll and ‘other things’ would not be entertained. Citing the shortage of quorum, the 12 polls to the standing committee was put off to September 19.
Addressing her maiden conference, Mayor N. Shanta Kumari thanked senior leaders for giving her an opportunity to serve as mayor and said that her priority would be to keep the city clean and to bring the sobriquet of ‘garden city’ back by maintaining parks and planting saplings across the city Since only seven months were left she said she would have to work ‘sleeplessly’ to live up to the expectations of the citizens and party leaders.
Apart from initiating welfare schemes for women, she said her thrust would be towards upgrading maternity hospitals and other general hospitals run by the BBMP. Assuring that she would take forward the Namma Bengaluru Nanna Koduge (NBNK) Our Bengaluru My Contribution involving corporates and public enterprises, she guaranteed to complete all the eight ‘welcome towers’ taken up by her predecessor. Quality of teaching, too, she said, will be enhanced at all the BBMP-run schools and colleges.
