AMC corporators rush to Delhi for lobbying

AHMEDABAD: A crisis enveloped the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation on Tuesday with at least 15 corporators from the Congress dashing off to New Delhi to meet senior party leaders to press for changing the incumbents of the five important posts in the AMC.
Sources in the party told TNN that the pretext under which the group had left for Delhi was to represent the recent ransacking of Madhavpura corporator Jitubhai Chauhan''s office in which it was alleged that loyalists of the rival Congress leader Surendra Rajput, were involved.
However, the prime issue on the agenda was to press for their candidature to the executive posts of Mayor, deputy mayor, standing committee chairman, transport committee chairman and leader of the municipal Congress whose terms are due to end in the next few months.
The power struggle seems to be between the rival factions of the Congress in the AMC headed by Rajkumar Gupta and mayor Himmatsinh Patel who are among those who went to Delhi reportedly to meet AICC member Ahmed Patel.
The general feeling in the party is that "several programmes of the Congress were not implemented in the biggest municipal corporation where the Congress captured power after over a decade", says a senior party spokesperson. Now it is felt that since the next post of mayor is reserved for a woman candidate, the deputy mayor incumbent should be a "strong" candidate to carry forward the party''s agenda and make an impact ahead of the scheduled assembly elections.
The group owing allegiance to Gupta is of the opinion that "new faces be inducted in the five posts in the next round of nominations, while the Patel group wants status quo to be maintained", said a senior party leader.
Some senior corporators feel that in the entire gamut of nominations, they were completely ignored for the key posts. Thus, some of the contenders for the mayoral posts if there is new dispensation, are Samu Nadia, Aneesa Mirza and Jayshree Shah who belongs to the erstwhile RJP.
Similarly, some of the likely contenders for the post of the standing committee chairman are Narendra Brahmbhatt, Surendra Baxi and Jayantilal Parmar.
Earlier, as per the ordinance the mayoral term was fixed for two -and-a-half years, going by which Patel will retire in March 2003 while the rest were to change every year. The high command also decided to continue the standing committee members and the other incumbents, which means they would be due for a reshuffle this year.
Besides Patel, deputy mayor Khemchand Solanki, standing committee chairman Badruddin Shaikh, leader of municipal Congress Hema Patel and transport committee chairman Surendra Baxi are among those who left for Delhi.