Thiruvananthapuram: As BJP heads to corporation council with a formidable presence of experienced councillors and prominent leaders, LDF is likely to face a stiff challenge in election to heads of standing committees.
Four head positions, exempting chairman of finance standing committee, may be reserved for women in the corporation where position of deputy mayor is not reserved for women, as per norms. Standing committees for health, education, development and town planning will be reserved for women for this tenure of the council.
CPM has always taken care not to give away head position of public works standing committee and health standing committee even to its allies. During 2010-15, when women headed four standing committees, health, education and development belonged to CPM councillors while UDF had then managed to win the chairperson position of town- planning standing committee.
CPM councillors Shajida Nazar and Gopakumar are likely to be considered for development and works committees, respectively. Palayam Rajan, who has experience leading welfare committee, may be given another chance. As for other committees, CPM is likely to pick from the pool of young women councillors. Former deputy mayor Rakhi Ravikumar, who is unlikely to be considered for mayor post, may also find a slot in standing committees.
As for BJP, there is a problem of plenty. Simi Jyothish, Manju, Karamana Ajith, Girikumar, V V Rajesh, Ashok Kumar and Anil Kumar stand equal chances of contesting in election to heads of standing committees. A meeting will be held on Sunday to finalise the candidature.
In 2015, BJP had foiled the chance of winning two head positions of standing committees despite having a strength of 35 councillors and that LDF didn’t even have absolute majority in the council.
BJP, which was relatively new to the system of proportionary election in standing committees, paid for its inexperience as it ended up with just one committee — tax appeal which is regarded as the most insignificant of all the committees. With a strength of 35 members, BJP had every chance of bagging two committees.
LDF had manoeuvred its 44 members in such a way that it could head seven of the eight committees. While the opposition presumed that LDF would scatter the members uniformly and will let go of two committees, the LDF had other plans. It had decided to forego tax appeal at the onset, considering its inconsequential nature at a time when people assessed their own tax and the relevance of the committee was being questioned. When BJP thought LDF would nominate seven members for finance standing committee, LDF planted just three members. This was done to spare members for an extra committee which would otherwise have gone to BJP. In the next phase, LDF nominated seven members for development and welfare committees with a total strength of 13 and six members for health, works and town planning which had a total strength of 12 members. In the least significant tax appeal committee, LDF proved its disinterest by nominating one member.