: Living up to its reputation of an administration in flux, Angamaly municipality on Monday got another chairman, this time from the principal Opposition.
LDF candidate Benny Moonjely polled 16 votes as against the 13 votes secured by the Congress-led UDF candidate K.A. Poulose. In the 30-member house, the UDF enjoys a simple majority of 18 members while the Opposition has 12.
The election, carried out in two rounds, was held amid heavy police security. In the first round, Wilson Mundadan, a Congress-dissident, also contested the election but secured just five votes.
The stance of the five Congress dissidents, who voted in favour of Mr. Moonjely in the next round, proved to be the decisive factor in his victory. The vote cast by Elsy Antony, one of the rebels, went invalid.
The civic body holds the dubious record of having 22 chairpersons within 30 years of its existence.
The election on Monday follows the resignation of C.K. Varghese as chairman of the municipality in September. The climb-down by Mr. Varghese, who had been stonewalling the party diktat to step down over the last many months, followed a warning by the District Congress Committee to support an LDF-backed no-confidence motion against him.
Mr. Varghese was ousted from the post of Municipal chairman last year too, following an LDF sponsored no-confidence motion, which was passed in the council with the support of eight ‘I’ group councillors. He, however, returned to power soon following an intervention from the party’s top leadership, which settled the issue.
Mr. Varghese, also the leader of Congress dissidents, blamed the party leadership of forcing them to vote against the party candidate.
DCC president V.J. Poulose said stern action would be taken against the five Congress councillors who violated the party whip to vote for the UDF candidate. The DCC had earlier convened a parliamentary party meeting of Angamaly municipality and directed them to vote for Mr.Poulose, an ‘I’ group candidate. However, about ten members walked out of it in protest to the unilateral announcement of the candidate’s name.
