Kavitha Sanil is new Mayor of Mangaluru City Corporation

Mangaluru: A day after women’s day celebrations, the Mangaluru City Corporation has a woman adorning the seat of the Mayor.

Corporator Kavita Sanil of the Congress has been elected as the Mayor of the city after a neck to neck fight from her own party contenders.

The post of the Mayor was reserved for Woman from General Category this time. With this a sense of race had begun between eligible candidates-Appi, Kavita Sanil and Prathibha Kulai.

As per insiders, the entire Congress house stood divided over the issue. A group of Congress corporators were against Kavitha Sanil on the grounds that she had corruption charges against her. Another faction favoured first time corporator Prathibha Kulai stating that she is a highly educated candidate, who deserves to lead the MCC especially when Smart City projects are in the pipeline.

When the issue could not be sorted out even at the district-level, an in-house election was reportedly held on Wednesday evening in the Congress house in presence of KPCC representative.

The MCC has total of 60 elected members, out of which 35 are Congress members and in the internal election, Kavitha had received 17 votes while Prathibha received 16 votes. Appi, one of the senior members of the Congress had to taste disgraceful defeat with just one vote.

Kavitha from Pachanady ward has been elected to the MCC thrice. She was also the President of Health Standing Committee. Her supporters say that she had taken several pro-active steps as President of the standing committee.

Meanwhile, Rajaneesh has been elected as the Deputy Mayor.

The MCC has 35 corporators from Congress, 20 from BJP, 2 from JD(S) and one each from CPI(M), SDPI and an independent.

Garnering a total of 38 votes – 35 from the Congress corporators and three more from MLAs Mohiuddin Bava, J R Lobo and MLC Ivan D’Souza – Kavita Sanil was chosen as the MCC Mayor whereas Poornima from BJP secured 20 votes.

Corporators Ashok Shetty, T Praveenchandra Alva, Adbul Rauf, Tilak Raj, Harish Shetty, Kavita and K Mohammed were designated to the town planning commitee.

Corporators Appi, Nagaveni, Gunashekar, Jayanthi, A C Vinayaraj, Asha D’Silva and Deepak were designated to the health committee.

Corporators Basheer, Zubaida, Prathibha, Meera, Radhakrishna and Sudhir were designated to the tax and finance committee.

Talking to Media after her elevation as new Mayor of Mangaluru , elated Kavitha Sanil thanked Veteran Congress leader Janardhan Poojary, through whom she made her entry into politics in 2002.

She said that she would work under guidance of District in-charge minister Ramanath Rai and also in close coordination with Minister Khadar, MLAs Bava, J R Lobo, MLC Ivan D’Souza for the overall development of Mangaluru City. “People have elected me reposing faith and will not breach their trust,” she said.

She thanked the voters of Pachhanady and Marakada and assured the people of her wards that she will remain committed and dedicated during her tenure as Mayor.