Flushed with victory in general elections, NDA eyes Mayor’s post in Visakhapatnam

NDA leaders are reportedly in touch with YSRCP corporators to get their support to take over the civic body

The YSR Congress Party holds the majority in the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation with 59 corporators. | Photo Credit: File photo

Visakhapatnam district has once again regained the tag of being Telugu Desam Party (TDP) bastion in this elections. The TDP and its alliance parties BJP and the JSP candidates have won all the Assembly segments with a huge majority. Now, the NDA party leaders have started to focus on the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) council and the post of the Mayor. Senior TDP leaders are holding discussions on how to take over the civic body

The GVMC council has 98 corporators, of which 31 are from the TDP, five are from Jana Sena Party (JSP), while the BJP, CPI and CPI (M) have one corporator each. The YSR Congress Party holds the majority with 59 corporators. Now, all the MLA candidates are from the alliance. It was learnt that the NDA leaders have been in touch with many YSRCP corporators seeking their support to the alliance.

A senior corporator from the JSP said, “Around 15 corporators of the YSRCP are ready to part ways with the party and join the NDA. This started even before the polls, as most of them are vexed with the YSRCP government for taking anti-people decisions.”

The NDA leaders are planning to get support from more number of the corporators and co-option members to take over the council and get the Mayor post.

A senior TDP corporator alleged that in the last few years, the GVMC council has been involved in a number of irregularities by misusing the public money.

“With the majority, several issues in the agenda were approved without even consent of the TDP, JSP and other parties. Most of the approved issues were meant to benefit the YSRCP leaders and to burden the citizens. The decision to collect charges for garbage collection was one of it. Taking over the council is the need of the hour to ensure the GVMC functions better,” he said.

According to the NDA corporators, the YSRCP had already issued a gazette notification stating that no-confidence motion can not be introduced in the council till the completion of four years for the post of Mayor. They said that the high command may definitely interfere and amend the gazette to enable introduction of no-confidence motion.