Udupi: Ranjani Hegde elected as the President of Belle Grama Panchayat

By Eugene DSouza, Moodubelle
Pics by Anil Alva
Bellevision Media Network

Udupi, 30 Jun 2015: As speculated in advance, Mrs. Ranjani Hegde who had joined the Congress Party on Sunday, 28 June 2015 was elected as the President of the Belle Grama Panchayat in the election that was held on Tuesday, 30 June 2015.

 

There was hectic activity in the Panchayat office as two candidates for the presidentship, Mrs. Ranjani Hegde, recently joined Congress member  and Mrs. Lydia Fernandes from BJP   and two candidates for vice presidentship-Harsh Shetty from Congress and Sudhakar Poojary from BJP submitted their nomination forms  to the election office, Mr. Udayakumar-Assistant Engineer PWD, Udupi at 11 am.

 

As all the nomination papers were found to be in order  none of the candidates withdrew their nomination, election was  held  at 3 pm. Counting followed soon after and by 4 pm election results were announced  by the election officer and Mrs. Ranjani Hegde and Harish Shetty of the Congress were declared to be elected as President and Vice President respectively with 10 votes each. The unsuccessful candidates-Mrs. Lydia Fernandes and Sudhakar Poojary of the BJP polled eight votes each.

 

 

Following the Grama Panchayat elections held in late May 2015, both the Congress supported and BJP supported candidates had secured 9 seats each in the panchayat body of 18 members. The equal number of seats had led to a lot of speculation and possibility of ‘horse trading’. As the presidentship of the panchayat was reserved for the women candidates belonging to the general category,  both the parties had kept their fingers crossed as both the groups had equal number of members. Under these circumstances, the equal number of votes would have led to the selection  of the president and vice president  by lots where luck would have played a great part.

 

In order to avoid such a situation both the groups were trying to woo members from the rival parties. Eventually, the Congress party succeeded in getting Mrs. Ranjani Hegde  to their side with the promise of making her their presidential candidate. The deal was sealed on Sunday, 28 June 2015 when Mrs. Ranjani Hegde was officially inducted into the Congress party in the Congress office Rajiv Bhavan at Kaup in the presence of Vinaykumar Sorake, Minister in charge of Udupi District and a number of Congress leaders including Mrs. Ida Gibba D’Souza and other members.

 

With Mrs. Ranjani Hegde officially joining the Congress party, the equation in the Belle Grama Panchayat changed with the strength of the Congress going up to 10 and the number of BJP members reducing to 8, thus having a clear edge for the Congress. Still there was suspicion and anxiety as anything could happen in ‘political game’.

 

The strategy of the Congress worked and Mrs. Ranjani Hegde got elected to the coveted post of president of the Belle Grama Panchayat where as Harish Shetty was elected as the vice president.

 

Mrs. Ranjani Hegde who was elected as the member of the Belle Grama Panchayat for the second time with the support of the BJP  was the Joint Secretary of the Udupi District  Women’s Forum.