Left front may draw blank in standing committees

KOCHI: The LDF, which was looking to head at least two standing committees, may draw a blank when members to all committees of the Kochi corporation were elected on Monday.
In fact, the front has lost hopes of clinching at least one standing committee chairperson's post, with the Congress-led UDF ensuring that it would win seven out of eight standing committees.The last committee will be headed by a councillor of the Muslim League.
The UDF has won the support of CPM rebel Zeenath Rasheed in the crucial standing committee for education. The front has also decided to offer Zeenath the chairperson's post. of education standing committee. With UDF banking on the backing of the lone BJP member, who will be nominated to the standing committee, the front is hoping to win the chairperson's post in the committee where both LDF and UDF have three members each.
In the 74-member council, the two BJP members -- Shyamala S Prabhu and Sudha Dileepkumar, stayed away from voting on Monday. On Tuesday, the council will meet again to nominate the BJP members. As per norms, each councillor should be member of one standing committee. The council will nominate BJP members to any of the eight committees. Since the vacancies are there in education and tax appeal standing committees only, the BJP members would be nominated to these committees. Even if BJP members raise objections to join any of these committees, the returning officer can nominate them to one of these committees.
"We will present Zeenath Rasheed as an independent candidate. So, BJP members will not have any problem in voting in her favour," a Congress leader said.
While finance standing committee will be headed by deputy mayor T J Vinod, the town planning standing committee chairperson will be Shiny Mathew. A B Sabu will be the chairman of the Welfare standing committee, and Gracy Joseph and V K Minimol will head development and health standing committees, respectively. Haris of Muslim League will be the works standing committee chairman, and K V P Krishnakumar will head the tax appeal committee. The elections for standing committee chairpersons will be held on Monday.