Guwahati, June 7: After Dispur, the BJP today took charge of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) as its councillor Mrigen Sarania got unanimously elected as the mayor.
With this, the GMC gets the first BJP mayor in its history - a development Guwahati development minister Himanta Biswa Sarma described a "golden moment" for the party.
The BJP became a majority in the council of the corporation when Nilakhi Talukdar, who had been holding the deputy mayor's post, resigned from the Congress. She took the decision when her husband and sitting MLA from Guwahati West constituency, Hemanta Talukdar, was denied a ticket by the Congress to contest the last Assembly elections.
When the Congress became a minority in the council, its mayor Abir Patra, who had been holding the post since 2013, stepped down on Friday.
The BJP last evening finalised the names of Sarania and Bijuli Kalita Medhi for the mayor and deputy mayor's posts. The general council meeting of the corporation today unanimously elected them.
Sarania will have two years in hand.
He said combating artificial floods would be his foremost priority. "I have accepted the responsibility most humbly. I thank all the councillors for electing me unanimously. We will work for development of the city by discussing with all the councillors. The mayor-in-council will be formed shortly where we will discuss our schemes," he said.
Medhi said she would perform her duties honestly. "We will work together irrespective of our party affiliations. We will try our best to do the remaining work in the next two years," she said.
Sarma and the MLA of Gauhati East constituency, Siddhartha Bhattacharya, also attended today's general council meeting.
Sarma said it was a matter of happiness that councillors from the Congress and the AGP helped Sarania and Medhi to be unanimously elected.
Sarma said as a huge portion of Guwahati already had settlements, they would try to expand the jurisdiction of the corporation.
"Because of large human settlements, whenever a green belt or an eco-sensitive zone needs to be declared, the government is forced to select areas in human habitats. Any move in this regard evokes objections from locals. That is why we will try to expand the jurisdiction of the GMC, but only after taking a consensus from the residents," he said.
Sarma said for better coordination between the GMC and the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) they will see if one of the two deputy chairman posts of the GMDA can be filled up by a member of the GMC. "We will experiment with this in the coming days," he said.
