Standing panel polls: High drama at GVMC office

High drama prevailed at the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) office even as the counting of votes polled in the standing panel elections was in progress on 7 August evening.

Corporators of the YSRCP staged a sit-in alleging irregularities in the poll process. Pointing out some ballot papers have the pencil marks, they argued that no marks, except swastik, should be seen on the ballot papers. They demanded that all ballot papers that have the pencil marks should be declared invalid.

Earlier, as many as 96 corporators, including Mayor Golagani Hari Venkata Kumari, took part in the voting held for the ten committees.

Though the YSRCP has a strength of 57 corporators in the corporation, it came down to 45 with 12 of its corporators joining the TDP and its ally JSP. While seven corporators switched their loyalties to the TDP, five others defected to the JSP giving a jolt to the YSRCP.

With this, the strength of the TDP-BJP-JSP alliance went up to 46 (TDP-37, BJP-1 and JSP-8). While there are four independents in the corporation, the Left parties have two corporators.

Keen on gaining control over the GVMC in the standing panel elections, the TDP launched ‘Operation Aakarsh’ recently and was successful in wooing the YSRCP corporators. Ten corporators each from the YSRCP and TDP-BJP-JSP alliance filed nomination papers for the standing committee posts.

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This article is written by Senior Journalist Lakkoju Nagesh Babu