BBMP polls: L Srinivas, Padmanabha Reddy frontrunners for Mayor post

BENGALURU: Who will be the next Mayor? This is the obvious question among the BJP leaders and corporators, who have made it to the present council. The citizens demand Mayor post be given to an educated person to set right the affairs of the city. This time, it may not be difficult for party leader and former deputy chief minister R. Ashok, who anchored the BJP victory in the BBMP, to zero in on the mayoral candidate as the most of them are novices and only a handful of them are experienced.

Since the post of mayor is reserved for general category the party leaders may not find it difficult to pick the leader. Mr Ashok’s trusted lieutenant and former deputy mayor L. Srinivas (Kumaraswamy layout ward), fifth time corporator Katte Satyanarayana, fourth time corporator Padmanabha Reddy (Kacharakanahalli ward), M. Nagaraju (Gangenahalli ward) and N. Nagaraju (Byrasandra ward) are the hopefuls. Srinivas and Reddy will be the frontrunners for the post. Since Katte Satyanarayana and N. Shantakumari were mayors during the BJP’s previous tenure they may not stand chance this time.

The other candidates who could have occupied the mayor post but got defeated in the poll are S. Harish, former deputy mayor and A. H. Basavaraj. The deputy mayor’s post has been reserved for general (women).

Lowest victory margin: 10 votes

The lowest victory margin was recorded Basavanapura (ward 53). The Congress candidate, B.N. Jayaprakash, defeated his nearest rival by mer ten votes. Jayaprakash got 10651 votes, while K Sundar of BJP got 10,641 votes.

Hemalatha, the JD(S) candidate from Vrishabhavatinagar (ward 102) and wife of MLA Gopalaiah, has scored a huge margin of 12,050 votes over her nearest contender. She secured 16,654 votes, while her close competitor H.R. Shanthamma from Congress could bag only 4,604 votes.

Congress candidate Radhamma Venkatesh from Horamavu (ward number 25) secured the highest number of votes - 25,756. BJP candidate Dwarakanath from Shantalanagar (ward 111) secured only 3,996 votes but still managed to win. This is the lowest tally by a victorious candidate. Manorayanapalya (ward 33) had the maximum of 15 candidates contesting from a single ward.