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| Rivals pace up activities, Civics’ bodies polls likely on time | | | ARTEEV SHARMA
JAMMU, Jan 14: The much-awaited civics’ bodies polls (Municipal Corporations and Municipal Committees elections) are likely to be held on ‘right time’ in the State and the key players eying top seats of urban local governance –the Congress, National Conference and BJP –have intensified their activities.
Highly placed sources said that hectic parleys were held between the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah and the Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand, who is also the Minister for Housing & Urban Development Department, for past two consecutive days here.
“During the closed doors meetings, hectic discussions were held between Omar Abdullah and Tara Chand. The upshot of deliberations was that the elections to both Municipal Corporations (Jammu Municipal Corporation and Srinagar Municipal Corporation) and other Municipal Committees should be held on right time to give a befitting reply to opposition parties,” sources maintained.
“The elections to Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) and Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) are likely to be held anytime in the last week of next month as the five-year-terms of both the Corporations would complete on February 28,” maintained sources.
Sources revealed that it has yet to be decided whether the coalition partners-National Conference and Congress-would contest elections together or go separate.
“Soon after today’s hectic discussion with the Chief Minister, the Deputy Chief Minister has gone to New Delhi to work out modalities for civic polls with party high command. The Deputy Chief Minister would hold meetings with the former Chief Minister and Union Minister for Health, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Minister of State (MoS) in Prime Minister’s Office and in charge Jammu & Kashmir, Prithvi Raj Chavan and other senior functionaries of the party and work out modalities for upcoming elections,” informed sources.
Sources further informed that the Congress high command would decide whether to contest civic polls together or it would field its candidates on its own.
Presently, 71-member JMC house has 27 councillors of the Congress, 25 of the BJP, six of the National Conference, nine independents, two of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and one each from the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Shiv Sena.
Both the PDP councillors had resigned from the party and they would participate in the elections as independent candidates while the one of the NC and BSP candidates had also resigned from the respective political parties. The BSP councillor has now joined the Congress taking its figure to 28.
It may be mentioned here that the first election to the post of Mayor and Deputy Mayor was held in February 2005 in Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) when the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate and existing Mayor Kavinder Gupta had registered his win while the Congress candidate Manmohan Singh had clinched the Mayorship for the second term in 2006. The BJP had got a big set back for the second consecutive term when the Congress candidate Narinder Singh had defeated the Kavinder Gupta in 2007. However, Gupta managed to clinch the top slot twice in 2008 and 2009.
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