Elections to standing committees in progress in Kozhikode Corporation

The election of members to the eight standing committees of the Kozhikode Corporation was held at the Corporation office on Tuesday (January 6) and will continue on Wednesday (January 7).

On the first day of the election, the mandatory female members in each committee were elected first, except for the finance standing committee, which is by default headed by Deputy Mayor S. Jayasree, and therefore does not require an election. Elections to the development, health, works and welfare standing committees were held on Tuesday.

The election to the welfare standing committee was the first to be held, and it ended up having five members from the Left Democratic Front (LDF), four from the United Democratic Front (UDF), and one from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

The works standing committee had eight seats to be filled, besides the mandatory female member. However, there were only eight nominations for the post and hence an election was not required. Meanwhile, the welfare standing committee had only six nominations for the nine seats, besides the female member. They were elected automatically, and the remaining members will be chosen later. The election to the health standing committee was also held on Tuesday.

Elections to the standing committees are unusual in the Kozhikode Corporation, and members used to be chosen through a political understanding. However, the delicate political balance in the council this time made matters tricky.

The LDF, with 35 of the 76 seats in the council, does not have a clear majority, and the UDF (28) and the NDA (13) combined make an Opposition stronger than the ruling front. However, the LDF was not open to negotiations put forth by the UDF and the NDA, and hence elections to the standing committees became a necessity.

Nominations were invited from each of the fronts towards the available seats in the standing committees, and every councillor had to vote separately for each committee, which turned out to be quite time-consuming.

Elections to the remaining standing committees — finance, education and sports, tax and appeal, and town planning- will be held on Wednesday.

Elections to the posts of chairpersons of the standing committees will be held within five days of the election of the members. Members of the respective committees choose their chairperson. This time, the UDF will get the chairperson post of at least one standing committee, for which the IUML supported Independent councillor Kavitha Arun has been nominated.