Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Kishan Suryavanshi was elected chairman of Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) Parishad unopposed on Monday. Collector Avinash Lawnia presided over the BMC meeting at ISBT and conducted the election process.
Congress did not field its candidate for the post and abstained from the election. Congress has 22 corporators in 85-member parishad.
Earlier, there were talks that Congress may field Pappu Vilash (independent) for parishad chairman election, however, the party maintained its distance from the polls. With no opposition candidate to contend, the district collector declared Kishan Suryavanshi elected unopposed.
Four-member appeal committee constituted
A 4-member appeal committee has also been constituted. The four members of the committee elected unopposed to the committee include Shreen Khan (Cong), Snehlata Raghuvanshi (BJP), Shakti Rao (BJP) and Gita Mali (BJP).
In all six corporators had filed nominations for the appeal committee. The collector rejected the form of Sheetal Verma of Congress as there was discrepancy in the signature. Besides, Shailesh Shahu withdrew his nomination. But with rejection of one form and withdrawal of another, only four corporators were left in fray for 4-members appeal committee elections.
Preferential voting system would have been followed had the elections been conducted to elect committee members. There are a total 86 votes – corporator + Mayor- and thus the value of each vote is 100 . The total votes’ strength which stands at 8600 is to be divided by total members plus one. Thus each contesting member requires 1721 votes to win election to the appeal committee. However, since all the four members were elected unopposed, no polls were held.
Media banned initially but…
Initially the media was banned from covering the election process following the opposition of the Congress corporators, the media was let in. Congress corporators including leader of Opposition Shabista Zaki had opposed the collector Avinash Lawania’s decision of not allowing the media to cover the election process. Finally, the collector allowed the media to cover the election.
