Hyderabad, December 04: Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Mayor Banda Karthika Chandra Reddy will resign from her post on Sunday.
The decision was taken in a meeting held at Gandhi Bhavan here on Saturday. The hour long meeting chaired by Pradesh Congress Committee president Botsa Satyanarayana was attended by Ministers J Geetha Reddy, Danam Nagender, P Sabitha Indira Reddy, M Mukesh Goud, city MLAs and other leaders. The Mayor herself was present in the meeting. The Congress party has decided to honour the power-sharing pact it had with Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and asked Karthika Reddy to submit her resignation on Sunday.
As per the deal the Congress and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen had in 2009 after the GHMC polls, the Congress candidate would hold the Mayor’s post while the Deputy Mayor’s post was given to the MIM corporator. The parties had then decided to would swap and retain the new posts for the next two years. The same swapping of posts would happen in the last year of GHMC’s term.
Mayor Karthika Reddy tried in vain with Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy and other Congress leaders to stay on the post for one more year. The MIM was keen on enforcement of post-poll deal with the Congress. The MIM wanted its candidate to be elected to the post of GHMC Mayor while vacating the Deputy Mayor’s post for the Congress party.
Several MIM corporators are lobbying hard to become the next GHMC Mayor. The strong contenders for the post include present Deputy Mayor Jaffer Hussain Meraj, former Mayor Mir Zulfeqar Ali, ex-chairman of Standing Committee Mohammad Nazeeruddin and Malakpet MLA Ahmed Balala’s younger brother and Pathergatti corporator Mohsin Balala.
Similarly, the Congress party too has many contenders for Mayor and Deputy Mayor’s posts. They include Minister Mukesh Goud’s brother Madhu Goud, GHMC floor leader K Venkatesh, Harshvardhan Reddy and Sunita Prakash Goud.
However, the election of new Mayor might take place only after two weeks. The GHMC Council will have to accept Karthika Reddy’s resignation and hold fresh elections for the posts of Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
——Agencies