The Pioneer 15.05.2013
Sanjeev Vijay Vargiya elected new RMC Dy Mayor
The Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) backed councillor of ward-10 Sanjeev Vijay Vargiya was elected as the Deputy Mayor of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) in an election held on May 14.
The election turned out to be a test of strength of political parties who threw weight behind their respective candidates. While Md Aslam was backed by Congress, Pradeep Kumar was said to have the support of AJSU party.
The city unit of the Congress has accepted the results with a pinch of salt and termed the win as insignificant. "A deputy mayor is a symbolic post with absolutely no power," said city president of Congress, Surendra Singh adding “we still have the numbers in the municipal board.”
Although, Congress feels the post to be insignificant, for BJP the win will help in strengthening party’s base at the grass-root level. “A Deputy Mayor plays an important role in the development of the city and if works well the party will surely get benefit of that,” said Gama Singh, BJP office bearer.While the new Deputy Mayor Vargiya got 24 votes, Aslam got 16 and Pradeep Kumar bagged only 14 votes.As many as 55 ward councillors of RMC took part in the voting which took place at the Collectorate however, vote of one councillor was rejected for not specifying the choice of the nominee.
Additional District Magistrate (Law & Order), Dhramendra Pandey presided over the election.
The newly elected DyM was administered oath of office by Divisional Commissioner of Ranchi Vandana Dadel in the presence of acting Administrator of RMC, Dipankar Panda who is also CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of RMC.
Incidentally, the State Government had proposed the Divisional Commissioner as the oath administering authority in the absence of Mayor.
The post of mayor is lying vacant as the mayoral election was rescinded by Governor Syed Ahmad and no fresh date for the election has been announced by the State Election Commission.
Earlier on the day, the newly elected ward councillors reached at the Collectorate alongwith their supporters and relatives for taking oath of the office. The oath taking ceremony lasted for around an hour.
Meanwhile, several aspirants pulled back from race due to lack of support and voted the DyM candidates instead. "I tried but could not manage enough supporters so I decided not to file nomination," said Arun Jha, who a day before election had expressed his intention to contest elections.
Elated with his win Vargiya said, "Ranchi is facing is a lot of problem like shortage of drinking water, frequent power cuts, congested roads and many more and it is time to think how we can deal with the problem to make our city better."
Vijay Vargiya, a businessman by profession, is known for working in the interest of the electorates of ward-10.
