M. Rajeshwari and Malan B. were elected Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Ballari City Municipal Corporation on March 19. The former was elected from ward 34 and the latter from ward 37 in elections to the civic body held in April 2021.
Elections to the posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor had been postponed a couple of times before being held on March 19 in the presence of Regional Commissioner (Kalaburagi) Dr. N.V. Prasad.
Of the 44 members in the house, 39 elected members and five ex-officio members (two parliamentarians, two MLAs and an MLC), Rajeshwari and Malan got the votes of 29 members. Surekhagouda and M. Govindarajalu, the BJP members who contested for the posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor, got 15 votes each.
Mr. Prasad gave all the candidates two minutes to withdraw their nomination papers. Since none withdrew, he decided to go ahead with the poll and announced the results soon after voting was over, in the presence of Deputy Commissioner Pavan Kumar Malapati and Corporation Commissioner Preeti Gehlot.
Congress had won in 21 of the 39 wards while the BJP got 13 in elections to the civic body in April 2021. Independent candidates, who were basically Congress members and contested the elections as independent candidates after being denied a ticket by their party ticket, had won in five wards.
Congress leaders had consistently alleged that the BJP was postponing the mayoral polls time and again on various pretexts to prevent the party from assuming power in the civic body after winning a clear majority. Some leaders had even alleged that BJP leaders were trying to reach out to Congress members with lucrative offers and persuading them to break away with the party and join hands with the BJP. To avoid the possibility of ‘poaching’ of its members by the BJP ahead of the mayoral elections, the Congress had herded its elected members in a resort on the outskirts of Bengaluru on March 16. The members were brought back to Ballari on March 18 night to cast their votes in the mayoral polls.
