By Team Mangalorean Bangalore

BANGALORE, May 10, 2010: The Bangalore Urban Zilla Panchayat continues to remain with the Congress with its candidates getting elected unopposed as president and vice-president of the panchayat on Monday.

Ms. Bhagya Rajashekhar Reddy and A. C. Srinivas were elected unopposed as president and vice-president respectively. Both will have a term for a period of 20 months as per the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act, 1993.

Bangalore Division Regional Commissioner C. Dhananjay declared them as elected as they were the only candidates to file their nominations. The ZP covers Anekal, Bangalore North, south, and east taluks and those included in the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.

Ms. Reddy represents Ramagondanahally constituency of Bangalore East taluk and Mr. Srinivas has been elected from Bagalur of Bangalore North taluk.

 In the Bangalore Urban Zilla Panchayat, the Congress has 12 members while the BJP and the Janata Dal (S) have seven and two members, respectively. The Congress candidates had bagged both top posts of ZP last time also.

In fact, no members of the other parties were present during elections as the Congress candidates were all set to bag the panchayat.

After their elections, both president and vice president promised of working for comprehensive development of the ZP by focusing on tackling drinking water problem, road, drainage and health.

Bangalore Urban Deputy Commissioner M. K. Aiyappa and ZP Chief Executive Officer K. S. Suryanarayan Rao were present.

Campaigning ends for second phase GP poll

Campaigning for elections to 2833 gram panchayats across 15 districts in Karnataka will go to polls in the second phase ended at 6 p.m. on Monday.

Elections would be held in Dakshina Kannada district and other two coastal districts of the State. Gram panchayats of Mysore, Chamarajanagar, Dakshina Kannada, Kundapur taluks of Ududpi district, Belgaum, Bijapur, Bagalkote, Dharwad, Gadag, Hassan, Kogadu, Mandya, Chikmagalur, Haveri, and Uttara Kannada will go to the polls on Wednesday. Polling would be held on Wednesday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

 Over 1.15 lakh candidates are in the fray for 40,423 seats in 15 districts. No candidates have filed nominations for 126 seats while 3,937 candidates have been elected unopposed in 15 districts.

Sources in the State Election Commission said that they have ordered repolling on Wednesday in 24 polling stations in 11 districts where gram panchayat elections were held on Saturday.

On last Saturday, elections held to 2,641 gram panchayats held 16 districts.  Election was by and large peaceful with high turnout recoded in most of the districts of north and South Karnataka. This turn is an indicator to show that rural people are more interest in politics than the city people, whose main interest was to earn money and seek comports from the Government.