Mysuru: Parimala Shyam of JD(S) was elected President and M.V. Gowramma Somashekar was elected Vice-President of the Mysuru Zilla Panchayat (ZP) today.

The two were declared elected unopposed by the Regional Commissioner (RC), Mysuru, V. Yashwantha, who was the Returning Officer, as no other candidates remained in the fray.

The ZP President post was reserved for BCA (2A-Woman) category, while the Vice-President post was open to General category. The election was necessitated as Nayeema Sulthana of JD(S) and G. Nataraj of BJP, tendered their resignation as President and Vice-President respectively on Dec.21, 2018 after serving for 31 months, as per an internal agreement between JD(S) and BJP in 2016.

S.R. Nandish, brother of Tourism Minister S.R. Mahesh, was functioning as Acting President.

The filing of nomination for both the posts began at 8 am, when Parimala of JD(S) was the only one to file nomination for the post. Minutes before the 10 am deadline, Congress candidate Gowramma and BJP candidate A.M. Guruswamy filed their nominations for the Vice-President post, with 12 noon deadline for withdrawal of nomination.

Just a few minutes before the deadline, Guruswamy withdrew his nomination and walked out of the ZP Hall along with seven other BJP members, accusing JD(S) of cheating and breaching JD(S)-BJP internal understanding, at the last minute.

Later, RC Yashwantha declared the election of Parimala of JD(S) as President and Gowramma of Congress as Vice-President.

While Parimala is a JD(S) ZP member from Antarasanthe seat in H.D. Kote taluk, Gowramma is the ZP member from Bilikere seat in Hunsur taluk.

Soon as the Congress announced the name of Gowramma for the VP post, Congress member from Hampapura in H.D. Kote, Srikrishna, who was a strong aspirant for the post, was very much disappointed and even vented out his displeasure before the media.

But District Congress President Dr. B.J. Vijaykumar succeeded in convincing him, saying that the choice for the VP was made by the Party High Command.

No single party has an absolute majority in the 49-member ZP. The Congress has 21, JD(S) 20 and BJP 8 members in Mysuru ZP, the election to which was held in Feb. 2016 and since then the JD(S), after reaching an internal agreement with the BJP, shared power with the saffron party.

Even till yesterday, JD(S) was talking about continuing the alliance with BJP. But in a late night development, JD(S) top brass asked the local leaders to follow coalition dharma and align with Congress, thus giving a new twist to today’s ZP polls.

With today’s election, a new era beings in Mysuru ZP, with the JD(S) and Congress combine taking over the reins.