Kolkata Municipal Corporation mayor Firhad Hakim today announced the names of the mayors of three municipalities namely Bidhannagar, Chandannagar and Asansol.
The names of the three mayors were finalised at a meeting of the CM Mamata Banerjee-headed Trinamul National Action Committee at Kalighat. Ms Krishna Chakraborty has been retained as the mayor of Bidhannagar, the deputy mayor is Anita Mandal and the chairman is Sabyasachi Dutta.
Mr Ram Chakraborty has been appointed as the mayor of Chandannagar while Mr Bidhan Upadhyay is the mayor of Asansol, Wasimul Haque & Abhijit Ghatak are the deputy mayors. TMC has won a landslide victory in the four municipalities. Immediately after results were declared, CM Banerjee announced Mr Gautam Dev as the new mayor of Siliguri.
After the announcement of the names, Ms Krishna Chakraborty said: “Thanks to Didi, she has put her trust in me.” Prior to joining the BJP in 2019, Sabyasachi Dutta was the mayor of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation while Ms Chakraborty was the chairperson. Mr Dutta had resigned as mayor before joining the BJP and chief minister’s long-time ally Chakraborty was then appointed as the mayor. After the assembly elections, Sabyasachi returned to TMC but the mayor’s post remained with Ms Chakraborty.
After the results of the civic polls were announced, Miss Banerjee had said: “Krishna is my eternal companion. I have known her since I became the MP of Jadavpur in 1984. At that time Krishna was with me. We both used to cook together and later Krishna married Bua whom she loved. And that too was from my house,” Miss Banerjee had said.
After winning the Bidhannagar election by a huge margin, both Mr Dutta and Ms Chakraborty went to visit Miss Banerjee.
In a major surprise, Mr Bidhan Upadhyay, MLA of Baraboni & Burdwan West district president of TMC has been appointed as the new mayor of Asansol Municipal Corporation. He has never contested in any civic polls, though for the past few years has shifted to Shriti Nagar in Asansol town from Baraboni area. Amar Nath Chatterjee, with an experience of 35 years has been appointed as the chairman, Wasimul Haq & Abhijeet Ghatak have been appointed as joint deputy mayors of AMC.
Mr Amar Nath Chatterjee was the chairman of the previous elected board and also the chairman of the Board of Administrators (BoA) of AMC. The state government will now amend the rules of the AMC to accommodate the posts of joint deputy mayors in the state assembly, said Mr Hakim. However, no non Bengali councillor has been given a berth in the top three posts though about 45 per cent voters are non-Bengalis. Speculation was rife that Rupesh Yadav of Raniganj will get a big post. The Trinamul has lost a number of seats in minority-dominated wards. Mr Ram Chatterjee will serve as the mayor of Chandannagar Municipal Corporation for the third time.