Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jan 3: The state government published the list of reservation criteria for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor on Monday January 1. Both the posts in the fifth and last term of this five-year cycle in the city corporation here have been set aside for general category. As there are many aspirants from general category, the city corporation is expected to witness frenzied activity henceforth.

The tenure of the current mayor, Kavitha Sanil, and deputy mayor, Rajneesh, will end on March 9, 2018. The election needs to be held and new mayor and the deputy mayor have to be elected before March 10.

Deputy mayor Rajneesh and mayor Kavitha after election last year

All the 35 Congress corporators in the 60-member council are eligible to contest for both the posts. During the current year, the post of the mayor had been reserved for woman candidate from general category and that of the deputy mayor, to scheduled caste.

This time around, the government has announced the eligibility criteria sufficiently in advance unlike in the previous years. This happens to be the last term during the five-year tenure of the council. This being the election year, lot of importance is attached to the mayoral post. Therefore, selection of candidate might be made based on likely electoral gains. Because this is election year, the elected candidates will be busy more with election activities than development.

So far, the selection of candidates during the four years was done by Congress apparently to appease certain castes and religions. This trend might be continued in the coming year too. There is demand to give the post of the mayor to a Muslim candidate this time. The leaders might finalize the candidate based on election calculations.