Bengaluru: As poll date nears, mayoral aspirants jockey for support

Bengaluru: With the term of Mayor Sampath Raj coming to an end on September 28, the fight for the coveted post is on. This time the post is reserved for women (general) and the candidates are lobbying hard for support.

While the BJP party is the single largest party in the BBMP council with 101 corporators, when the votes of the MLAs, MLCs and the MPs are taken into account BJP will have only 122, while the Congress-JD(S) coalition has 129.

The coalition also enjoys the support of eight independent candidates, making their total strength to 137 and the magic number needed is 130 votes.

Though the JD(S) is trying to bargain for the Mayor’s post, sources claim that Congress candidate will get the post as they have handed over the chief minister post to JD(S).

Among Congress candidates the frontrunners are corporators Latha Kuvar Rathod (Gandhinagar), Gangabike (Jayanagar), Lavanya Reddy (Lingarajapuram) and Sowmya Shivakumar (Shantinagar). In the last election the fight was between Minister George's candidate Sampath Raj and KPCC working president Dinesh Gundurao's candidate Govindaraj.

Congress party sources claim that this time Mr Gundurao is keen on getting his constituency candidate Latha, while MLA Ramalinga Reddy, who was deprived of ministerial berth, is lobbying for Gangambike.

Latha told Deccan Chronicle, “I am very much in race for the Mayor post and confident of winning it. I have been actively involved in social service for the past 10 years and ever since I was elected to the council, I have been aggressively raising the issues concerning not just my ward, but the whole city."

Meanwhile, leader of opposition Padmanabha Reddy said that he will approach the HC seeking its direction to remove MP Jairam Ramesh, Congress MLCs V.S. Ugrappa and Raghu Achar and JD (S) leader Manohar from voting.