Swetha Devraj is Hassan Zilla Panchayat chief

Hassan: Congress member Swetha Devraj was on Friday elected unopposed as new president of the Hassan Zilla Panchayat but the question is how long will she last in the post since her caste related row is yet to be settled in court. Swetha’s deputy in the ZP is Srinivas of Janata Dal Secular (JDS). Swetha represents Bageshpura seat while Mr Srinivas was elected from Konnanur seat in the ZP.  The president’s post was reserved for Scheduled Tribes (woman) while the deputy’s post was set aside for the general category. In the 40-member ZP, 23 members are from JD(S), 16 from Congress and one from the BJP. Since, there were none from the ST category to contest for the ZP chief’s post in either JD(S) or BJP, Swetha’s election went unchallenged.  For the vice-president’s post, Mr Srinivas’ candidature was challenged by Congress member Mr Chandrashekar representing Hallimysore seat. In the voting, Srinivas polled 23 votes while Mr Chandrashekar secured 16 votes.

The results were announced by Regional Commissioner of Mysuru division A.M. Kunjappa, who was the presiding officer for the election.  Despite Swetha’s election as ZP chief, JD(S) is confident that she will lose her membership since they claim she does not belong to the ST community. Rekha Jayanna who was defeated by Swetha in the election has moved the JMFC Court, Arasikere.  After the election, Bhavani Revanna, a Zilla Panchayat member representing Halekote seat and daughter-in-law of former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, criticized the state government saying, “It was a deliberate attempt to prevent JD(S) from coming to power in the ZP even though the party has a majority.”