Mayoral polls will be held tomorrow at old meeting hall

Hubballi: The residents of the twin cities are eagerly awaiting the elections to the posts of the mayor and deputy mayor of the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) Council, given that many development projects have been hanging fire owing to the delay in the elected corporators being formally sworn in. While the polls are scheduled to be held on Saturday and HDMC officials are preparing the ground for it, there appears to be a logistical problem: The old meeting hall at the HDMC office where the elections have always been held was designed for a house with a strength of members. However, the number of wards under HDMC’s jurisdiction has now risen to 82, and the officials are scampering about to make adjustments to ensure that the hall can accommodate all members of the council, and ensure that the tradition of holding the mayoral polls continues.
Former mayor Pandurang Patil, however, said that, there was no hard-and-fast rule to hold the mayoral polls at the old meeting hall. “The officials must look to see if they can hold the meeting at the Convention Hall at NCM, and the Kannada Bhavan in Ashok Nagar. It is undemocratic to hold meetings without members of the press in attendance; it is also unconstitutional. HDMC officials must look for an adequate space, and accommodate all the corporators, members of the media and the officials,” Patil said.
HDMC commissioner B Gopalkrishna said that, they wished to continue with the tradition of holding the mayoral polls at the old meeting hall. “The corporators can decide on the venue for the general body meeting later. We have made all the arrangements to accommodate all 82 corporators, other elected representatives and 10 officials. As such, there is no problem with space,” Gopalkrishna said.
Sources said that, initially, they had thought of holding the polls at the ZP meeting hall in Dharwad, or the Kannada Bhavan in Hubballi. “However, at the behest of the regional commissioner and election officer, Amlan Aditya Biswas, it was decided to hold the elections at the old meeting hall,” a source said.
The HDMC is hoping to construct a new building on the site of the old court building, at Court Circle. The government is yet to approve the allotment of the property for the HDMC Council building.