Manoj Kumar elected as new Mayor of Mangaluru on September 19, 2024.  | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT

BJP’s Manoj Kumar and P.S. Bhanumathi elected new Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Mangaluru

The Mayor and Deputy Mayor will be in office for a little over five months and not for one year.

by · The Hindu

Manoj Kumar of the ruling BJP elected from Derebail North Ward No. 17 was elected unopposed as the new Mayor of Mangaluru, for the 25th term, on September 19, 2024.

The office of Mayor was reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate. The Opposition Congress did not field any candidate to contest the office of Mayor as it did not have any councillor belonging to SC category.

P.S. Bhanumathi, a BJP councillor elected from Bolara Ward No. 58, was elected as the Deputy Mayor. She defeated Zeenath Shamsudin of the Congress by 47-14 votes. The office of Deputy Mayor was reserved for a woman councillor from Backward Class A.

P.S. Bhanumati elected as new Deputy Mayor of Mangaluru on September 19, 2024. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT

MLAs, MLCs, MP vote

In the 60-member House, the BJP has 44 councillors, the Congress 14 councillors while the SDPI has two councillors.

As MLAs, MLCs and MP who are voters in the jurisdiction of the city corporation enjoyed voting rights, Dakshina Kannada MP Captain Brijesh Chowta, Mangaluru City North MLA Y. Bharat Shetty, Mangaluru City South MLA D. Vedavyasa Kamath — all from the BJP — voted in favour of Ms. Bhanumathi.

The two Congress MLCs, Manjunath Bhandary and Ivan D’Souza, did not turn up for voting. Of the two councillors of SDPI, Shamshad Aboobakkar remained neutral. Another councillor, Muneeb Bengre, did not participate in the voting.

A short term in office

As the five-year term of the present elected council will expire on February 27, 2025, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor elected on Thursday (September 19) will be in office for a little over five months and not for one year. This is because, former Mayor Premananda Shetty and former Deputy Mayor Sumangala continued in their offices for about one-half year due to a delay in the announcement of reservation for the Mayoral election for the 23rd term, which was to be held in March, 2022. Hence, after a delay of about six months, the election was held for the 23rd term on September 9, 2022.

The first Mayoral election of the present council was held on February 28, 2020. D. S. Ramesh, Regional Commissioner, Mysuru was the Election Officer, on Thursday.

Published - September 19, 2024 01:32 pm IST