Suspense over new deputy mayor continues brew

Visakhapatnam: Suspense continues to brew over electing Deputy Mayor of Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) in Visakhapatnam.

After winning no trust motion against Mayor and Deputy Mayor recently, the alliance elected Peela Srinivasa Rao as the Mayor.

However, whether the Deputy Mayor post will be given to BJP or JSP is yet to be confirmed. To discuss about the issue, Mayor P Srinivasa Rao, a team of MLAs, including Velagapudi Ramakrishna Babu, Palla Srinivasa Rao, Vamsi Krishna Srinivas Yadav and P Vishnu Kumar Raju and VMRDA chairperson MV Pranav Gopal met Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu to discuss the candidate.

Even as a special meeting is scheduled on May 19 at the GVMC to elect the new Deputy Mayor, the candidate is likely to be announced in a day or two.

However, there seems to be evident competition from the TDP, BJP and JSP for the Deputy Mayor’s post. With the Mayor’s post given to the TDP, a large scope of allocating the Deputy Mayor seat either for JSP or BJP candidate.

Also, caste equations are going to play a major role in selecting the candidate.

According to a senior leader, the seat is likely to be given to a candidate belonging to either Yadava, Kapu community or BC woman.

However, as there are candidates belonging to these communities in TDP, JSP and BJP, selecting the right person has become a challenging task for the alliance high command.