Kavita Sanil is new Mayor of Managluru; Rajaneesh is her deputy

Mangaluru, Mar 9: A day after the international women’s day, the city of Mangaluru got a women Mayor. As expected Kavita Sanil from the Congress won the mayoral poll by defeating BJP candidate Poornima with a margin of 18 votes on Thursday. Rajaneesh from Congress was elected deputy mayor unopposed.

A second time corporator, Kavitha represents ward 19 in the city corporation, while Rajaneesh, a debutant, is from ward 24. The mayor’s post was reserved for the general category and deputy mayor for scheduled caste (SC) candidate.

As there were three front runners for the office of Mayor from the ruling Congress, the party leaders and the party’s election observers had conducted an internal voting late on Wednesday and selected Kavitha as the Mayoral candidate.

In the 60-member elected council, the Congress enjoyed majority with 35 seats. Apart from bagging votes of all the 35 Congress corporators, Kavita bagged the votes of MLAs Mohiuddin Bava and J R Lobo and MLC Ivan D'Souza.

Poornima secured remaining 20 votes. MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and MLC Capt Ganesh Karnik from BJP were absent as they had realised that their votes would not make any difference. Mysuru divisional commissioner Jayanthi was the election commissioner. More details to follow.