Prasanna Earnest takes charge as Kollam Mayor

Prasanna Earnest of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was elected the new Mayor of Kollam on Tuesday. Immediately after her election was formally declared by the District Collector and Returning Officer Devendrakumar Dhudawat, Ms. Earnest took charge of the post at a public function held within the City Corporation headquarters complex.

In the 55 member Corporation Council, the Left Democratic Front has the majority with 34 members with the CPI(M) having 20 members. The district committee of the party had earlier selected her as the LDF’s mayoral candidate. Ms. Earnest was elected from the Thamarakulam Division.

When the 55 councillors of the Corporation Council met at 11 a.m. to elect the new mayor, the CPI councillor G. Lalu, representing the Mangad Division, proposed Ms. Earnest’s name as the mayor and it was seconded by RSP councillor S. Meenakumari representing the Shakthikulangara Division.

An election was warranted when Indian Union Muslim League councillor, Majida Wahad representing the Kayyalakkal Division proposed the name of O. Jayasree of the Congress, representing the Kadappakada Division as the mayoral candidate of the United Democratic Front. Her name was seconded by Udaya Sukumaran of the Congress representing the Punnathala Division.

The UDF has 19 members in the council. The council also has a Peoples Democratic Party member and an independent (Congress rebel). The councillors were told that they should put an “X” mark against the name of the candidate they intend voting and also sign on the reverse side of the ballot along with their names.

When the results were announced, the LDF received 34 votes and the UDF its 19 votes. But the other two votes were declared invalid. Though the PDP member M. Kammaluddeen representing the Koottikada division voted for Ms. Earnest, instead of the “X” mark he had put a tick mark against her name and this rendered his vote invalid. The independent member G. Satheesh Kumar representing the Palakadavu division deposited his ballot in the ballot box without voting for anyone and thereby rendering his vote invalid.

The oath of office was administered to Ms. Earnest by the Dr. Dhudawat. At the function in this connection the Ministers P.K. Gurudasan, M.A. Baby and N.K. Premachandran were present. A huge crowd of supporters cheered Ms. Earnest as she took the oath. Being a former activist of the Students Federation of India, Ms. Earnest was accorded a special welcome by former SFI activists, under the banner of Comrades@Cyberspace. The welcome was accorded in the form of the three mythical characters Panchali, Kunti and Damayanthi, all in kathakali attire.

This was to symbolize the growth of women empowerment in Kerala under LDF rule, one of the organizers of the programme said. Earlier Ms. Earnest and other LDF councillors were brought to the Corporation headquarters in a cultural procession from the CPI(M) district committee office.

courtesy : The Hindu

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6-12 yuvadhara Thanks to B.Jayakumar and Diesnon, Yuvadhara for contributing this interview

CBI move baffles Congress leadership

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state Congress leaders are keeping their fingers crossed as the CBI’s second interrogation of G.Karthikeyan has come as a real surprise and caused them a major concern. What surprised them was not the CBI interrogation per se but the way it was conducted.A summon by the CBI to its office in Chennai was not anticipated by many top leaders of the Congress. This has raised many curious eyebrows in the State leadership of the party since at least a few believe that something serious is going to happen.``Taking a statement from a leader and summoning a leader should be treated differently.A summon cannot be taken lightly,’’ was how a senior Congress leader reacted to this. The leaders are confused over how to react if anything comes against the party in the SNC-Lavalin case.The case was a handy weapon for the Congress till now to attack the CPM in general and Pinarayi Vijayan in particular.But now the Congress leaders are in a fix over what stand to be taken if Karthikeyan too is implicated. Going by the indications, the leaders believe that there would be some adverse comments against Karthikeyan.However, the more embarrassing aspect is that the CBI has interrogated Karthikeyan twice based on the observations made by the court. Hence if Karthikeyan is implicated, there will be accusations against the Congress leadership that they had lobbied to exclude the name of Karthikeyan from the CBI chargesheet.The CPM had levelled the same allegation when the CBI had filed their chargesheet in the court. However, Karthikeyan beg to differ on all these fears. ``There is nothing extraordinary in it. The CBI is the investigating agency and they wanted me to report at their office.They had some doubts and wanted my clarifications. Right from the beginning I had maintained that I was ready to cooperate with any kind of investigation.Since I am a law abiding citizen, I appeared before them. There is nothing unusual in it,’’ Karthikeyan told `Express'

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