Madikeri: The ruling Congress suffered a major setback in the Standing Committee election in the Madikeri City Municipal Council as the BJP managed to sweep away seven seats. It is now suspected that several Congress members had cross voted, ultimately helping the BJP to win over seven seats. The Congress had to remain happy with a meager three seats. An SDPI candidate backed by the Congress too has managed to win.
A secret ballot was cast for the standing committee polls. While 11 Congress candidates were in fray, the BJP had 18 vying for various posts.
In the secret ballot Congress candidate Chummi Devaiah bagged 13 votes, K M Ganesh got 13 votes, Julecobi got 13 votes, H M Nanda Kumar got 12, A S Prakash Acharya had 12, Leela Sheshamma had 12, Thabassum had 11 votes and SDPI candidate Amin Mohsin had 11 votes along with Mansoor who bagged 13 votes, K G Peter who bagged 14 votes and Neema Adarsh who had 13 votes.
Meanwhile, BJP’s Anitha Poovaiah received 16 votes, Lakshmi receive 13 votes, P D Ponnappa had 14 votes, K S Ramesh had 14 votes, Savitha Rakesh had 13 votes, Shiva Kumari had 14 votes and P T Unnikrishnan had 14 votes.
According to the highest votes received BJP’s Anitha Poovaiah, P D Ponnappa, K S Ramesh, Shiva Kumari, P T Unnikrishnan and K G Peter and six others got elected to the standing committee.
Five names of those who received 13 votes were selected through draw and thus names of Lakshmi, Savitha Rakesh from BJP and K M Ganesh, Julecobi and Chummi Devaiah were picked through draw. Even during the draw, the luck was in favour of the BJP.
MP Prathap Simha, MLA Appachuranjan, MLC Sunil Subramani and Veena Achaiah too participated in the poll.
Earlier, Council President Kaveramma Somanna had said that six positions will be given to the Congress, three to BJP and two to SDPI. The SDPI and the BJP did not agree to this allocation and demanded more. Soon the Council had to run into an election to settle the matter.
Cross voting kills Cong
The standing committee election results have brought to open the lack of unity and integrity among the Congress members. The results have made it evident that some Congress members have voted in favour of the BJP. Such an episode had taken place even during the CMC President and Vice-President elections where Srimathi Bangera and Veenakshi of Congress had cast votes in favour of the BJP and supported the BJP openly. While all the Congress members remained present for voting, Veenakshi remained absent on Monday. Despite this, with the MLC Veena Achaiah’s vote and SDPI backing the Congress should have got 14 votes. Even the four SDPI candidates should have bagged 14 votes, but only K G Peter of SDPI bagged 14 votes while others could get only 11 votes. Some of Congress candidates themselves bagged 12 votes, holding mirror to the lack of unity of the party.
On the other hand in all its probability, the BJP could garner only 11 votes (members, MP, MLA and MLC votes). But, since the Congress members favoured the Lotus, the BJP candidates walked away with 13 to 16 votes and also swept the polls. In all its likelihood no less than five Congress members have favoured the BJP.
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