The Hindu 26.11.2010
UDF nominees elected chiefs of all 8 standing committees
Staff Reporter
| Deputy Mayor to be chairperson of finance committee |
KOCHI: The United Democratic Front nominees won all the eight standing committees of the Kochi Corporation in the election held on Thursday.
Those elected as heads of the standing committees are: K.J. Sohan (town planning), T.K. Ashraf (health), Essy Joseph (welfare), T.K. Vinod (development), R. Thyagarajan (education), Soumini Jain (works) and Ratnamma Raju (tax appeal). Deputy Mayor Bhadra Satish will be the chairperson of the finance standing committee.
Though the LDF candidates had contested all the standing committees except the Tax Appeal Committee, the UDF nominees won the posts on the basis of their strength in the council. The LDF didn’t have women representatives in the Tax Appeal Committee, which was reserved for women.
The only change that was introduced in the list of Congress candidates was the introduction of Ms. Raju as the chairperson of the Tax Appeal Committee. This change was made following the intense lobbying by the ‘I’ faction in the district unit of the party.
According to the earlier understanding in the party, Suja Roy, a former ‘I’ faction loyalist, was to be made the chairperson of the Tax Appeal Committee. However, the ‘I’ faction raised a revolt in the party forum and demanded that the post should be given to its nominee, which was objected to by the ‘A’ faction.
The long deliberations conducted by the Congress leaders in the district, including the DCC president and some of the Congress legislators, also failed to end the deadlock. Eventually, a decision allotting the standing committee for the ‘I’ faction nominee was announced by the DCC leadership late on Wednesday night, paving way for the election of Ms. Ratnamma. Mr. Vinod is the other representative of the group who was elected as the chairperson in the council.
The ‘I’ group, which suffered a setback in the election of the Congress parliamentary party leader, had to be content with two chairperson posts. During the parliamentary party leader election, Tony Chammany defeated KPCC general secretary N. Venugopal to become the Mayor. Ms. Raju and Mr. Vinod are the group’s nominees as the chairpersons in the council.
First meeting
The first full-fledged meeting of the newly elected corporation council is likely to be held on November 30. A decision in this regard will be taken shortly after a meeting of the party leaders in the council.
