Congress to lose power in Junagadh Municipal Corporation

Junagadh, 1 June, 2014

12 Congress Councillors including Deputy Mayor and Standing Committee Chairman of Junagadh Municipal Corporation(JMC) will join BJP tomorrow. The announcement on this will be made in a press conference in Rajkot tomorrow.

Deputy Mayor Girish Kotecha during his talk to DeshGujarat on Sunday evening said, “yes that’s true, 12 Congress Councillors from 4 wards are joining BJP on Monday, announcement of which shall be made in a press conference in Rajkot.”

Junagadh is only city in Gujarat where Congress is ruling party in local Municipal Corporation. The elections of Junagadh Municipal Corporation are likely to take place in next two months as five years term of elected Congress body is going to end on 31 July. In view of upcoming elections, Chief Minister Anandiben Patel has last week announced over 500 crore Rs. development projects for Junagadh city.

Meanwhile Municipal Commissioner of JMC has proposed disqualification of two Councillors Bakul Dhuva and Lakshman Solanki under BPMC section 11 for their absence in General board continuously for three months.

Congress Mayor’s reaction:

Mayor of JMC Lakhabhai Parmar told DeshGujarat that Deputy Mayor Kotecha and others were always sympathetic to BJP, and even in their own wards, BJP has got more votes compared to Congress. Lakhabhai said he and his supporters will beat drums and offer sweets to people as soon as Kotecha and others join BJP. Lakhabhai said BJP has already many to claim party tickets in upcoming JMC elections, the question arises how BJP will be able to offer ticket to those 12 leaving Congress. He pointed out that existing term of elected body in JMC ends on 31 July and if 12 out of 26 Congress Councillors join BJP, Congress has nothing much to lose.