Mysore/Mysuru: With the tenure of current Mayor Sunanda Palanetra set to end on Feb. 24, the aspirants for the next Mayor and Deputy Mayor’s posts are now keenly awaiting the Government’s reservation matrix for the elections.

This time, the election is for the fourth term and District Minister S.T. Somashekar, MLAs S.A. Ramdas and L. Nagendra and a host of other BJP leaders are making behind the scene moves to push the Government to announce reservations that best suit the BJP.

Many Corporators believe that the Mayor’s post will be reserved for the General category while that of the Deputy Mayor’s post will be reserved for the ST category. However, if the Government follows the roster in the reservation, then the Mayor’s post may go to a ST candidate.

The tenure of Mayor Sunanda Palanetra and Deputy Mayor Anwar Baig will end on Feb. 24. Sunanda Palanetra was elected in a mid-term poll held on Aug. 25 last year, after the High  Court  in May 2021, disqualified the then Mayor Rukmini Madegowda, who was a JD(S) Corporator on the grounds of making false submission on  asset holdings while filing nomination papers in the 2018 MCC polls.

Anwar Baig of the Congress was elected as Deputy Mayor of the Congress-JD(S) coalition in Feb. 2021, which came to power following the 2018 polls. Following the disqualification of Rukmini Madegowda, Deputy Mayor Anwar Baig functioned as the acting Mayor for  three months till Sunanda was elected on Aug. 25, 2021. Meanwhile, it is learnt that MCC Council Secretary Rangaswamy has informed the Government about the tenure of the current Mayor and Deputy Mayor coming to an end in a fortnight. He is said to have written to the Urban Development Department on Dec. 27, 2021, seeking announcement of reservation matrix for the Mayoral polls to elect the new Mayor and the Deputy Mayor for the fourth term of the tenure of the current MCC. The officer is also said to have sent a reminder to the Department’s higher authorities in this regard last week.